A sealion with shades of red?

[EAF602Whizz]

Just musing to fill in the dreary hours at work so don't get all mad at me.

Churchill manages to scrape together his little expeditionary force of British, French and some free Polish forces to go to the aid of Finland. There are all sorts of complications with Norway and Sweden and we've maybe lost friends because of it, but the troops are in Finland, fighting Russians. Meanwhile RAF wellington bombers based in the Near East attack targets in the southern Soviet Union with little success. We lose a few Wellingtons and their crews are never seen again whether they bale out or not. Britain and France are at war with Germany and the Soviet Union.

Our fairly pathetic military contribution however can't save Finland from being eventually steamrollered although perhaps our presence makes a ceasefire more complicated and ultimately Finland becomes an SSR. The first Hurricane aces of WW2 are based in Finland rather than France.

Come Spring the Germans invade Denmark and Southern Norway, the soviets invade Northern Norway. What happens in Sweden? Are they coerced/bullied into joining the axis?

France falls as per OTL along with Belgium and Holland. Soviet Union invades Persia possibly?

August 1940 The battle of Britain is kicking off with the addition of Soviet SB2s etc. My question is what's soviet amphibious assault capability like?

[Blackadder mk 2]

ASB to the power of 5

[EAF602Whizz]

Ha ha ha. That's that then. lol.

[Cockroach]

Axis gains in shear number of aircraft (if the Germans are willing to let Soviet aircraft operate from France and the infustructure allows it) and get a moderate boost in naval power (two or three obselete and poorly maintained Battleships, a handful of cruisers and a fair number of destroyers). Doubt it changes amphibious lift much (the sovs few amphibious operations early in the war were far from brilliant successes). Not sure about the anti-shipping capability of the Soviet airforce...

Communications and logistical difficulties will go someway to negate those gains though.

All in all, yes it improves the Axis position, if we take only the positive side of things and ignore the negatives, perhaps even enough that Seelowe moves from utterly implausible to meerly a long shot. That said, it is still certainly not enough to give any certainty of success...

[My Username is Inigo Montoya]

http://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...d.php?t=189023!!!
It's basically the scenario you described.
We've not decided yet whether there'll be a Sealion analogue -but I don't think it would succeed anyway.

[EAF602Whizz]

I didn't think so either tbh, but I was curious about Soviet amphibious abilities and airlift.

I think possibly a Soviet invasion of Northern Norway might take some of the heat off of the Kriegsmarine. The Soviet navy is toast when it meets the RN. Perhaps fewer German destroyers get sunk.

I could see a Soviet expeditionary force maybe participating in the battle of Britain as retaliation for the RAF attacks on Russian oil fields. Similar to the Italian component. Maybe also allied forces clashing with the red army in the Near East.

[Grey Wolf]

If the addition of Soviet aircraft allow the BoB to be won, then the combined airforce could attempt to close the channel - that was IIRC the plan, to prevent the RN enterng the Channel

later

[Jukra]

Originally Posted by EAF602Whizz

August 1940 The battle of Britain is kicking off with the addition of Soviet SB2s etc. My question is what's soviet amphibious assault capability like?

If determined as a number of purpose built assault craft, negligible. However, Soviets could provide, or sell, very large number of well built (well, much better than Italian) light naval craft as well as light coasters which could provide German Kriegsmarine some additional power in Sealion.

As an example for some of these small crafts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MO_class_small_guard_ship

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-5_cla...r_torpedo_boat