If Johnson and Jeffries had fought close to their primes...

I think you underestimate the loathing for Nazi Germany in the 1930s (and Anglophilia among the upper classes during WWI a generation before) in the United States.

The US just didn't have that many compelling interests in Europe. In either world war. It's not like the Germans had the resources to build a transatlantic invasion fleet -- or the logistical magic to do anything with a fleet if they'd had one. (Other than stare angrily across the Atlantic from the safety of occupied Europe and make vaguely rude noises).

In any event, my secondary point stands regardless of America's actual motives. The US would have gone to war against Germany whether or not the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.

 

There's no way the Germans could have taken the UK. Even if they'd reached the Urals and crushed everybody else. Postwar simulations held by the British military (on several occasions) showed that Sealion would have failed even if the Royal Navy and RAF had completely disappeared. Historians agree with them.

And even if the Germans do get across the Channel, the British would hit European agriculture with Operation Vegetarian. (Anthrax bio-warfare). Not to mention that the British had started work on the Bomb.

Even if the US had stayed out, the best case scenario for the Nazis is holding Europe and European Russia. They'd be too busy dealing with guerrilla resistance to do much to the US -- or Britain, for that matter. (As Ukrainian Slavs, the Klitschkos would either be dead or legally prohibited from receiving an education, as per Generalplan Ost).

 

Agreed.

 

Most likely outcome without the US is a stalemate between Nazi Europe and the Soviet Union / UK. Being European probably sucks for a very long time afterward.

Yeah, they weren't going to go under anytime soon. But they would have taken a pounding from German U-Boats and the Japanese picking off whatever they could grab in the East.

Subtract the US, and nobody (except Germany and possibly the US itself) comes away from the 1940s happy.

 

They'd originally just planned the first one, but it became such a hit that they decided to make a sequel.

 

Certainly possible, but the Germans wouldn't have to keep nearly as many troops on the Atlantic Wall. They could also fall back on interior lines as the Soviets moved forward, without worrying about a second front.

The Soviets, for their part, wouldn't get American supplies, which means that those crucial production resources would need to shift to trucks, coats, and spam instead of T-34s. Then you can add the fact that American bombers aren't pounding Berlin (with more effective tactics than Bomber Command used), the Brits need to worry more about the Far East, etc.

Red Europe is one of the cards on the table, yeah. It's either that or a draw. If the former, it's going to take a while to crack Germany.

Either way, being a 1940s European still sucks.