Vietnam vs WWII

[Howard Allan]

The allies get Vietnam era weapons. The United States doesn't enter the war. Can the allies minus the states win World War 2 if they get Vietnam era weapons?

[Beadle]

Couldn’t Russia or Britain just nuke Berlin and Tokyo at that point?

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Couldn’t Russia or Britain just nuke Berlin and Tokyo at that point?

Russia certainly could, and would without a question.

[Totoro Man]

I take a fairly "maximalist" approach to WW2. in addition to the obvious invasions of Poland and France... for me it starts in 1937 with the Sino-Japanese War. it also includes things like the Italian invasion of Greece, the Slovak Hungarian War, the Franco-Thai War. it includes Ukrainian genocides versus the Poles, and Polish counter-actions. pretty much any killing that was done between July 1937 and August of 1945 could qualify.

with that in mind, when we are talking about "the Allies" I don't think that the Soviet Union ever becomes one. because if Poland had access to Vietnam era tech they might very well have been able to defeat both Germany fast enough that Russia wouldn't even bother to invade. France and Britain wouldn't have sat off on the side lines and twiddled their thumbs either. they could have immediately sent bombers straight into Germany. Germany would have gotten wiped off the map before the Soviet Union even decided to invade Poland. the Soviet Union wouldn't have been an ally at this early stage in the war... so they wouldn't benefit from this scenario at all. it would have also discouraged them from taking over Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. it probably would have discouraged them from invading Finland and Romania as well. Poland might get a bit too belligerent with their Czech neighbors... but the British and the French would have a much stronger interest in them now... and would use their considerable military and political power to try and keep Poland from getting out of hand (Poland practically doubled it's land mass between WWI and WWII. they weren't entirely innocent victims in a lot of these scenarios either).

Great Britain would certainly never consent to Stalin getting Vietnam-era weapons and tech! France wouldn't like it enough to push for the idea... and Poland would probably, not unreasonably, nuke the people that wanted to give Stalin that sort of power.

if the "Allies" include Nationalist China then they could have crushed Japanese imperial ambitions at Shanghai and this would probably lead to WW2, as we know it, never really happening at all. I would also wager that a large number of uprisings across the world wouldn't have happened either. the Cochinchina uprising probably wouldn't have happened in 1940. Thailand wouldn't have invaded French-ruled Cambodia either. France might not have given up it's colonial empire until the 90s with that sort of huge technological advantage. India might still be ruled by the British Empire since there wasn't the Japanese threat to help inspire them to build up the Indian infrastructure and give them the means to prosper from their independence once they got it.

lots and lots of things would be profoundly different.

[Nik Hasta]

Air supremacy would be a whole different ball game.

Vietnam era planes massively outstrip their WWII counterparts and the air game was a critical part of the German strategy.

[big_adventure]

And cruise missiles. And radar guided AA. And widespread and millions of times better radar and sonar. And vastly superior comms tech. And comms jammers. And interception tech. And computers. And screens. And B52s. And attack helicopters. And better tanks. And better anti-tank tools.

There are so many things which are so VASTLY superior - the skies would be on lockdown, the ground wouldn't be far from it. They would have to change the definition of "ace" from 5 kills to like 50.

[Captain Smith]

Too vague. When do they get them and what levels? Is this one of those where a modern country gets transported back in time as the the Shield novel, were modern Israel arrives at the start of WWII (just before the invasion of Russia?).

Viet Nam era Soviet Union is a nuclear beast and easily rules the world.

[Howard Allan]

Ok then. Let's change it up to the weapons in the Korean war. That should be a closer match. Korea at the beginning of the war.

[Captain Smith]

USSR nukes in 1949, UK 1952. USSR had armor far superior to beginning WWII armor. It has highly developed Mig and Yak fighters both in prop and jets. If you have Mig 15s, the air superiorty is no challenge for the USSR. The UK has Meteors, and Vampires. The French have modern prop plans and some of the early jets.

The conventional forces can hold off the Germans and destroy their armor. The nukes then destroy the major cities of Germany and important assets. The USSR can probably seize or destroy the Romanian oil fields with ease.

The British will have the Ultra secret and with developed antisubmarine techniques neutralize the U Boats. There was a tremendous tech leap from 1939 to 1950.

To make it more even, you might do Viet Nam era: Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland against the Axis.

One caveat is that Sweden had a nuke program that it abandoned but probably would get it up to speed really quickly.