If Spain had joined the Axis, could they have won the war?

If Spain had joined the Axis, could they have won the war?

No. While it would be a net gain, especially in the sense of a likely ability to secure Gibraltar and let the Italian fleet out of the Med, it wouldn't be enough to change the overall outcome.

No, they would still lose to the Soviets on the eastern front. The Spanish already sent their soldiers to the eastern front in OTL anyways, without officially joining the war and it didn't help. All they would do is delay the opening up the Mediterranean theater. On top of that, joining the Axis would reignite the civil war in the country.

They might of been able to hold out a couple of more years, but they would still eventually lose the war.

What were the Axis plsns for Spain after victory? Just invite them in?

No. Now stop making these stupid fucking threads over and over again.

>Liberated by allies
>Marshall aid
>EU membership
Yeah, Spain could greatly improve had they sided with the nazis.

Yes

join venture to recover spicamerica I guess

In the contrary, it would shorten the war, as it becomes much easier for the Americans to open a second front in Europe and hitler is forced to commit more troops to the West.

Not him, but I have a hard time believing some sort of Iberian campaign will involve more troops than the historical Italian campaign.

spaniards invented guerrilla war, it would be like the balkans was to the nazis

The blue division was less than 6000 soldiers. That's nowhere near full support

We're talking a hypothetical situation where Spain joins the Axis, not Germany invading Spain. While you'd have whatever anti-franco elements could be mustered up, trianed, armed, and organized for round 2 of civil war, it's not like you don't have a friendly government with a pretty significant reach over there.

Plus, although I haven't done much study into the state of the Iberian peninsula by WW2, I don't think the local levels of infrastructure were very good. That's going to sharply limit the number of troops either side can commit to a campaign down there.

Wasn't Spain ultra weak after the civil war? I guess they could have helped at bit but thet would still get wrecked by americans

Oh yes another useless ally which would have huge casualties, fail against Britain and America, then surrender and unite with Allies against his ex-friend Germany. Yes it would change the world and we would be living in nazi utopia right now with no blacks, Jews, homosexuals, internet and OP would got laid

Spanish studying history here.

The answer is: Partially, Spain was with the Axis, it was mainly because of their help that Franco won the Civil War so Franco send some help back in the IIWW (search La DivisiĆ³n Azul) but in the other hand, it was little to no help because Spain ended up poor as fuck after the II republic and the Civil War, their alliance was more of a ideollogic one (archaeology to demonstrate that Spain was an indoeuropean place yada yada).

In summary: Spain was with the axis but military couldn't almost help because the country didn't had the time to recover from the Civil War.

There's no winning against the US and USSR. Especially if the US can use Britain as their unsinkable aircraft carrier

Honestly, at least from my armchair general perspective, Spain's alliance with Germany, assuming it happens shortly after the fall of France, is mostly going to offer geography, not any sort of industrial or manpower resources. The single most important thing Spain can do is offer access to enough German troops to secure Gibraltar, which blocks one half of the access to the Meidterreanean and at least in theory lets the Italian fleet out into the Atlantic to really complicate the convoy war. (Whether or not this can actually be done is more difficult to calculate, Italian ships were designed with the calmer conditions of the Med in mind and had short cruising ranges. And there's always the perennial shortages of oil. How effective they'd actually be is far from clear.)

The single most important thing they do is just exist.

>In summary: Spain was with the axis but military couldn't almost help because the country didn't had the time to recover from the Civil War.

So just like Italy bur without Hitler pressuring them

North africa would be more contested. Spain would collapse as germany had other efforts to do. And if Germany supported the spaniards, the soviet union would only grow stronger.

No, Spain was completely and utterly destroyed after the civil war

Imagine being this retarded

>Spain could greatly improve
>Worse now then they were under Franco

It's full of commies, corruption and the worst economy after Greece, it could be quite better

If Spain and Portugal joined the Axis it would have helped the U-Boat war a lot, but probably would have just bought them a few more months.

The Germans best chance would have been no Russian involvement.

Unlikely, as it would have meant that Western Europe was more vulnerable for an invasion. Not to mention most of Spain's economy and infrastructure had been devastated after the civil war and there were serious concerns that another civil war could arise.

While the seizing of Gibraltar may have snowballed the Axis efforts of dominating Europe and winning the war, it would depend on when that happened. If at the outbreak of war, the Spaniards occupied the Rock, a repeat of convoy raiding seen in WW1 may have made the situation in Britain untenable. However, if the Spanish join in post-Soviet invasion, the opening of the Mediterranean would do little to alleviate the situation.

Ultimately, a neutral Spain may be better than an Axis-aligned one, as the country was in no state to be a decisive factor in the war.

If the Turks joined however...

>If a country that lost in a 1v1 against a half arsed American military that was mostly made up on volunteer regiments less than 50 years ago joined could they win?
No

Spain was ultra weak before the civil war

>6000
They were at least 50000

Spain lost that war basically because the fleet was shit, but in land the story was different for the americans

>If the Turks joined however...
What can they do? They can help Iraq and Iran win their war. It doesn't look like they can really help the North African or Soviet campaign too much.

>If the Turks joined however...
This.
The allies were very concerned at this possibility because it would have allowed the Germans to attack the middle east and caucuses directly and would cut of Russia at the Bosporus. The axis probably would have beat the Soviets if this happened.

Not him, but if Turkey joins the war before Barbarossa, suddenly the Germans have a friendly state and a rail connection that runs all the way from their own territory to the Caucasus. They can actually put a thrust at one of the few economic soft spots of the USSR, as well as be in a position to choke off the Persian Corridor and all the Lend-Lease that went through it, without having to fight their way through about 3,000 kilometers from their starting positions.

Again, it's not so much what Turkey can offer in terms of manpower or industry, it's a matter of location. Germany is considerably stronger in 1941 and throughout most of 1942. Their only real hope is to strike some sort of critical blow before the proverbial roof falls in on their heads.

>They can actually put a thrust
You are wrong to think they can have an easier thrust through here than in eastern Europe. The Soviet advantage is huge, with them outnumbering the attackers, just one railway connecting the Soviet Caucasus, and they are defending in the freezing mountains - making Blitzkrieg useless; so this will be another front that takes away hundreds of thousands of men from the fight in Europe. There is only one(1) way to make this work, but the Axis won't do it: Encircle the Caucasus and forget about occupying Stalingrad, Moscow, or Leningrad, instead initiate Case Blue and send army groups from the Pontic-Caspian steppe and Turkey to encircle and take out the Caucasus, thereby taking important industrial centers like Baku; but the problem is, the Axis won't do this and will prefer to attack cities.

>The Soviet advantage is huge, with them outnumbering the attackers,
They did not on the eve of Barbarossa. And the overhwelming majority of their forces were on the partioned polish border.

> and they are defending in the freezing mountains - making Blitzkrieg useless; so this will be another front that takes away hundreds of thousands of men from the fight in Europ
"Blitzkreig" is a combination of enormously diverse German operational abilities. The Germans managed to advance quite rapidly in the trackless forests of northern Russia, and that too, was iwth extremely limited ability to use their armor and more mobile elements, just advancing with people on foot. Fact of the matter is that Soviet tactics, training, and doctrine were all beyond pathetic in 1941. They'll learn as the war goes on, but they couldn't fight effectively at the outset.

Also, they won't be defending in the mountains. The Kura clears out a very wide passage within the Caucasus, that gives a break in the mountains that runs from east to west.

>Encircle the Caucasus and forget about occupying Stalingrad, Moscow, or Leningrad, instead initiate Case Blue and send army groups from the Pontic-Caspian steppe and Turkey to encircle and take out the Caucasus, thereby taking important industrial centers like Baku; but the problem is, the Axis won't do this and will prefer to attack cities.
Because they're not so stupid as to leave enemy strongholds behind them. And, as you noted, you only have one railroad servicing this column. I don't know what its transport capacity is, but it's going to limit the force you can effectively supply. It almost certainly can't sustain a million plus strong advance.

All you would get is Guernica 2: electric boogaloo

This.

what if sweden, spain, and brazil joined

You get America.
La creaturas...

>Portugal joined the Axis
No chance.

So memes aside there was nothing Germany could have realistically done to win the war?

Not attack every motherfucker simultaneously

No. Germany had burned all of her diplomatic bridges on embarking on the road to re-armament. That meant that there was no real way to turn the early victories into a stable peace; Hitler's word wasn't worth the paper it was written on, and he had to either beat all comers or die trying. He didn't have the manpower pool nor the industrial base for that.

Not without either

1) Letting the Soviet Union join the Axis permanently (this was a serious possibility at one point and they were discussing how to divide Eurasia and the British Empire)

or

2) Condemning Pearl Harbor, cutting ties with Japan, lobbying hard to maintain good relations with US while simultaneously getting a few more critical countries near the S.U. on board for an invasion, and have them participate from the beginning of it (Sweden, Turkey). Without the US the UK would not have the manpower to invade Italy and France. With the added forces of Turkey and/or Sweden plus the added German divisions that weren't diverted west to hold France/Italy after the Allied landings than their chance would have been pretty good.

As other anons have noted a Turkish push into the Caucasus while most of the Soviet forces were in Poland would have been devastating, as it would have been if Sweden fully mobilized and sent most of their military through Finland to strike at Moscow from the North (and this also assumes the Finns would have also been more proactive than they were IRL)

It would have also helped a ton if the Italians were worth a damn. Though I suppose that's asking a lot of them.
It took 7,500,000 deaths before Germany surrendered, 3,100,000 for the Japanese, and a pathetic 500,000 for the Italians.
That's as many dead as fucking Romania.

What the fuck would Spain have accomplished

>Invade southern France, probably lose to small amounts of French troops like Italians did
>Send some symbolic token force to USSR where they get all die
>Allies invade at the same time as Operation Dragoon
>Spain immediately surrenders, Franco deposed, Republican remnants take power after the war
>All of Spanish Morocco & Spanish Guinea goes to France

I have just described Spain's contribution to WW2

Additionally, not being complete dicks to local people in territory they captured from the Soviet Union.

While the constrains of the Nazis ideology meant that it was unlikely that Germany would ever treat liberated peoples (such as the Ukrainians/Belurussians, etc) nicely, if they had delayed their genocide campaign until after the war, they could have drawn on a larger agricultural and manpower pool of Eastern Europe, many of whom hated the USSR.

They also never mobilized like the other countries did

the main interest in getting Spain to join the Axis is actually more to controlling the Mediterranean and having a shot at Gibraltar but still being neutral is the best thing for Spain to do

Nazi Germany received most of their iron from Spain.

you mean Sweden

Turns out you are correct, though they did receive most of their pyrite from Spain.

Lots of tungsten too.

underrated post

>it would have helped the U-Boat war a lot
how so, more than two thirds of German U-boats were launched 1943 on, and nearly all of them were sunk on their first voyage without a single kill

you should look at how tough a time the Turks had when they tried to invade the caucasus in ww1, that terrain is extremely advantageous to defenders

They would have probably overrun Gibraltar with German backing but at large costs (i.e. Crete).

By 1943ish Allies are bombing the shit out of it.

Taken by 1944, given back by UK

>rail connection from their own territory to the Caucasus

do you seriously believe any of the rail bridges from European Turkey to Asian Turkey would have survived more than a week after their entry into the war