200 days shorter?!?!, Romania after 23.08.1944

You forgot Croatia.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on March 28, 2009 01:00 pm

Ok, then, european allies - states that had an independent government - to rule out Croatia and Slovakia, good?

As usual, this "what if" scenario is linked by other "what if".
Combined with few others "what if", if Romania would remain in the Axis the war could be longer with 200 days. Even with 200 additional days, the outcome would be the same. With German industry under daily bombing, all kind of exotic projects of jet fighters, stratospheric missiles and futuristic submarines would be issued in small numbers.
America would have the atomic bomb in July 1945, anyway.

There are countless "what if" regarding this subject.
If Romania would remain in the Axis and the Soviets would break the fortifications and advance just as little as to occupy Ploiesti and the petroleum pits, it would not make much difference from that moment.

Or if the Germans would advance in December 1944 up to the Atlantic shore and cut the Allies in Belgium and Holland, those Allies could be supplied by air and by navy, and the Germans would be still vulnerable toward the Soviets.

This post has been edited by Florin on March 30, 2009 05:19 pm

An observation: there would have been no need for the Soviets to physically occupy Ploieşti. The FNB line was at a few dozen kilometres from Ploieşti - like 5 minutes flying! Anyway, nobody ever said the final result could have been different - not to my knowledge, at least!

This post has been edited by MMM on March 30, 2009 06:49 pm

An interesting issue raised by MMM, were Ploesti oilfields bombed by Soviet airforce during 1944, and with what consequences?

The passenger trains around Ploesti were machine gunned by Soviet airplanes.
Somebody living now in the U.S. survived to such an attack.
However, this does not answer to your question, if their airplanes attacked refineries and industrial installations.

If I would be Soviet Union back then in 1944, I would not do it, considering the secret negotiations between the Romanians and the Soviets.
It could be argued that it would make sense for Soviet Union to capture the area instead of bombing it, but they did not need that much the Romanian petroleum.

No, but they did bomb cities in Moldavia IIRC.

Did they? I don't remember reading that. Anyway, Suvorov/Rezun claimed in one of his undoubtedly true books that on june 26-th 1941 the VVS launched a raid on Ploieşti that crippled the industry, halving the capacity of refineries for a couple of weeks. I found no other source on that - have you?
Getting back to 1944, it is unclear why didn't the Soviet bomb Romania earlier on in the war - only because of the peace talks? They did have the capacity...

Yes, I have. The VVS did bomb Ploesti several times in 1941, occasionally causing significant damage.
If truly interested, you can find details elsewhere in this forum, and also in my aforementioned book.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on March 31, 2009 06:03 pm

Read carefully dragos' post to which I replied. It is clearly mentioned there the year 1944.
In 1941 there were ideed VVS raids over Ploiesti. Just do a forum search.

So, the Soviets DID bomb cities in Moldova in 1944! Which cities and when? What Moldova (left or right of Pruth River)?

Japan WHAT?!?! They did capitulate immediately after the Red Army entered thier territory of Manchuria in august 1945, at more than three entire months from Adolf's suicide!

Japan was an axis member (to the end) and an ally of Germany after the war moved on german soil. scroll back. this is what you asked.

I stick to my oppinion: Japan capitulated after being invaded by SU - at least, Manchurian territories held by Japan. And at that time, there was no more axis, thus no more tri-partite pact, right?!

when the US landed on Okinawa, there was still an "axis".
Manchuko was never annexed to Japan, so the occupation of Manchuko is pretty much the same thing as the red army invading Ukraine or the Baltic states.
also, Japan didn't surrender because of the soviet attack on Manchuko, but because of the atomic bombing.