When I played War in the Pacific PBEM, on average we'd do 2 turns a day on the weekdays and 3-6 on the weekends. I was working full time then. I can't recall exactly how long it took to get to 1945 but it was months, maybe a year. But just for example, if you played just 1 turn a day, then you're looking at 2-4 years? About the same time to get a college degree...
I don't know if I could manage a 2-6 turn a day schedule for this, but probably.
In War in the Pacific, once you get the routine down you can streamline things. At first I wanted to see all the turn details for air combat , but after a while I usually just hit the esc key and looked at the final results. Surface to surface and anything involving carriers was a different story. I always wanted to see all details and full combat actions with graphics so that was more time consuming. Running supplies and maintaining a supply line and communications line could get time consuming and prepping for invasions was also time consuming.
Being a land centric war may make WItE a different proposition.
One thing is for sure. If you haven't played in a while you have to re-invent the wheel and learn it all again. Its been years since I played War in the Pacific so if I tired again I would be back at square 1.
Gary Grigsby games is a lifestyle. I even had a map of the Pacific hung up on the wall at work so I could ponder my next moves. I would even discuss this with a co-worker, who while not a wargamer found it interesting.
I just finished the Velikie Luki training scenario and got a major Soviet victory. I did all the attacking. The Germans got some powerful panzer divisions, but was passive and didn't bother counterattacking. I captured 3 out of 4 victory hexes. I let the AI do all the managing of air assets. No idea of what the hell was going on with the supply situations. I figured the AI would handle that.
I opened up the next training scenario- Road to Minsk. Took one look and decided it was time to stop and start watching YouTube tutorials, how to's and game play video and figure out what the hell I should be doing...