Mother Russia Will Never Surrender - A WW II TL

Onkel Willie

So, I've been toying with this idea for a week or so and I decided to put it in a TL. IOTL, Stalin ignored Hitler's obvious intention to attack with huge military disasters and devastating losses as a result. The premise here is that Stalin chooses to prepare for war even though he knows the odds.



Mother Russia Will Never Surrender​



Chapter I: Storm Clouds and Barbarossa, January – September 1941. ​


It was 1941 and the Second World War had been on since 1939, in other words for almost two years. Nazi despot Adolf Hitler had taken over German after his sweeping propaganda and demagoguery had convinced the better part of the German people to vote for him since he seemed to be the answer to the economic crisis and because he promised he would send the hated Treaty of Versailles to the bin and he had done so. He had restored Germany’s military might to a great degree, annexed Austria and the Sudetenland without bloodshed and had reaffirmed Germany’s great power status. This, however, had come at a cost since rearmament led his country slowly but surely to bankruptcy and so he needed war booty to continue going. War, of course, was in line with Hitler’s ideological imperatives anyway since he wanted to conquer Lebensraum to the east for the German people. After his annexation of Czechoslovakia the British and French finally saw that he was not to be trusted and would never quit asking for more.

At Poland they drew a line and when Hitler crossed it, they declared war. Stalin in the meantime had spent the better part of the decade in isolation, ruthlessly building up a massive industrial base in a series of Five Year Plans to mobilize his country (with vast production increases in a mere ten years: coal production went from 35.4 million tonnes to 127 million tonnes a year, pig iron output from 3.3 to 14.5 million tonnes etc. Also, a number of new industrial complexes such as Magnitogorsk were build as well as factories around Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad and Chelyabinsk although forced labour was heavily relied upon in all cases). To the amazement of the world Hitler conquered Poland in weeks with Soviet assistance in line with the spheres of influence protocol in the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop Pact. In swift lightning campaigns Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries and France had fallen before German military might which put to risk Stalin’ intention to be ready for war in 1942. Hitler first proceeded to assist his Italian colleague dictator in the Balkans and North Africa, but the Soviet Union was never far from his thoughts since conquering and colonizing it for the Aryan master race to lord over was his stated goal. Not even Stalin could deny that Hitler was making true his intentions stated in Mein Kampf. Whether Stalin with all his power liked it or not, his country was on the eve of war and there was nothing he could to about it.

In August 1940 already British intelligence had already discerned Hitler’s intention to invade the USSR, mere weeks after he had given the order to begin preparations for what would become known as Operation Barbarossa, his crusade against communism, Stalin and the Slavic people. This intelligence had been passed on to Moscow, but Stalin had chosen to ignore it since he mistrusted Britain. He believed the British were trying to sow discord and provoke a war between the Soviet Union and Germany which would benefit Britain as it was fighting Germany alone at this time, but evidence started to pile up as months went by, evidence that now even the bloodthirsty dictator in the Kremlin couldn’t dismiss so easily. German preparations were clearly visible to commanders on the border with Germany who since January were begging to be allowed to mobilize and dig in to defend. Germany attempted to assuage Soviet fears by saying the preparations were a ruse to trick Britain. Ample evidence of an impending attack, however, kept coming in the early months of 1941 and eventually Stalin conceded. Troop movements, offensive preparations, German reconnaissance flights and supply dumps were all known to exist by Soviet intelligence, indicating German intentions. As final proof, both Sweden and Britain relayed the exact date of the attack to Moscow and this finally convinced Stalin of the reality of war. Stalin summoned his greatest generals to the Kremlin, at first terrifying top cadre officers who feared another wave of purges, starting with these generals. This was far from the truth as Stalin wanted to brief them. Zhukov, Konev, Rokossovsky, Vatutin, Vasilevsky, Timoshenko and a number of other notable generals such as Kirill Meretskov who had distinguished himself in the Winter War were called to convene in Stalin’s little corner of the Kremlin, not knowing what the Vozhd wanted. This, however, soon became clear as Stalin informed them of the impending attack and even told them the exact date. He wanted his generals to prepare the defence of the Rodina. They formed Stalin’s new unofficial STAVKA which notably excluded a few former favourites such as Budyonny and Kulik. They had fallen from grace after their incompetence in the Winter War and Stalin gave them new, fairly harmless positions with little power (in effect making them desk generals). And so it was done and Stalin’s generals presented their ‘glorious leader’ with a defensive plan and he wasn’t pleased with it, but reality was that the Red Army was ill-prepared for war. Many units were lacking in trucks to provide basic ammunition and supplies, maintenance was abysmal in some cases, training and leadership was lacking (especially at the middle and lower ranks), many tanks and aircraft were outdated and the purges had nearly wiped out the officers corps. 30.000 officers hadn’t survived the purges including 84 generals, 144 division commanders and 50 corps commanders. Only ‘politically reliable’ officers remained who were on average then years younger than their German commanders, inexperienced and lacking training and leadership skills. The modern T-34 and KV-1 tanks came in short supply and the Soviet air force was outdated with old I-15 biplanes and I-16s. Modern fighter planes like the MiG-3, LaGG-3 and Yak-1 were all just starting to come off the assembly lines and even they didn’t fully compare to the Messerschmitt Bf-109 and later the Fockewulf Fw-190. Moreover, many units only existed on paper and the Red Army was only halfway through its reforms. The plans devised by the generals were therefore all defensive in nature and aimed at minimizing losses to consolidate later.

The plan was to clear out the parts of Poland occupied in 1939 as per the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact since this was hard to defend, leaving only a screening force. Little had been built here in terms of defensive lines (the Molotov Line was far from finished) and it was all flat terrain too, in other words ideal panzer country. The Red Army would conduct a fighting retreat from the Stalin Line to a line along the Dnieper river with local counteroffensives and elastic defence, and then consolidate there for a winter offensive. It was hoped that with the river as a natural defensive line to hide behind and the aid of ‘General Winter’, the Red Army would survive and consolidate its power for another day. Stalin was strongly disappointed, but his generals (mainly Zhukov who dared to stand up to him) pointed out that the Red Army with all of its deficiencies was not ready for an offensive war and so Stalin reluctantly approved of the defensive strategy and preparations were taken to counter Barbarossa. Poland was largely cleared of Soviet troops except a delaying force and they were positioned along the Stalin Line, a series of heavily fortified regions. The Stalin Line had been abandoned and had its guns taken away in 1939 and now these defences were hastily and with improvisation prepared to serve their original purpose. Also, Soviet aircraft were spread out over the western USSR to prevent them from being taken out on the ground quickly in the early phases of the war. All units in the western military districts were put on high alert starting in late May 1941 and all leaves were cancelled. The German high command was temporarily aroused although Hitler was not (he perceived the clearing out of Poland as a sign of weakness). Berlin was comforted by the excuse of ‘military exercises’, the same excuse the Germans used (although some of Hitler’s generals were alarmed, but they were ignored). As far as quality, training and logistics went, Germany was superior although the Soviet Union had some advantages too. It had the largest army in the world and a massive industrial base. The Red Army fielded over 23.000 tanks although only 2.000 were T-34s and KV-1s at the time. The USSR had a number of advanced industrial regions to produce more and its air force was also numerically superior by far. Hitler waved these concerns away and the date for Barbarossa, June 22nd, neared. Stalin held his speech before his generals at this time:

“The fascists think they can intimidate the workers of the Soviet Union with their threats of military violence disguised as ‘military exercises’. Our comrades of the intelligence services have managed to discern the true intentions of the fascist minds. They believe we will crumble like a house of cards with their aggression! We shall show them otherwise. Mother Russia will never surrender!”

From Joseph Stalin’s ‘War Speech’, dated June 12th 1941. ​

Late on June 21st alerts went out to the mobilized units across the western military districts that war was imminent and when the German merchant fleet in Soviet ports tried to leave, they were interned by the Red Navy which infuriated Hitler. The offensive started as planned on June 22nd, just like the Soviets had been told by foreign intelligence and proof given by their own intelligence services. 3.2 million Germans and 500.000 Hungarian, Romanian Croat, Slovakian, Italian and Finnish forces crossed the border to bring down the hated Stalinist behemoth and pave the way for Hitler’s insane schemes while the Luftwaffe started to attack all over the western Soviet Union. On the northern front the 4th Panzer Group of Army Group North attacked toward the Neman and Daugava rivers which were the main obstacles toward Leningrad and they quickly encountered forces of the 3rd and 12th Soviet Mechanized Corp who resisted fiercely in a fighting retreat. They had to retreat to avoid being surrounded and destroyed and so they inflicted some serious casualties and caused a delay although they suffered casualties up to 40% in the process due to clear German air superiority in the Baltic region. The Red Air Force rose to the challenge and Germany’s air superiority went far from uncontested although they held the edge in these opening phases. The Daugava river was reached before the end of July. Army Group Centre at this time ran over the Red Army’s screening forces in Poland only to encounter much fiercer resistance from the 3rd, 4th, 10th and 11th Armies who were fully mobilized. The Stalin Line’s fortifications caused heavy casualties and held up the Germans for some time, but not very long. They failed in stopping the 3rd Panzer Group from crossing the Neman River while the 2nd crossed the Western Bug in the south. The Red Army’s strong elastic defence with its limited means caused German commanders headaches, but they advanced quickly nonetheless which confirmed earlier estimations of the weakness of the Red Army. Army Group Centre’s aim was to advance along the Bialystok-Minsk-Smolensk axis toward Moscow. Some 32 divisions fought in Belarus around Minsk which the Germans reached on July 23rd. Army Group South faced the 5th, 6th and 26th Armies which included five mechanized corps which launched a number of relatively successful local counteroffensives which also gave the Germans a taste of the Red Army’s powerful artillery which included the Katyusha rocket launcher. Nevertheless they were forced back by the ferocious German attack.

Behind the lines, SS Einzatsgruppen started to round up all the Jews and kill them without regard for age or sex. The mass graves would be uncovered later and the news reached the USSR which would be fuel for the Soviet Union’s propaganda machine. The initial enthusiasm from Ukrainians and the like for the German ‘liberators’ soon ebbed away. The Nazis oppressed them even more than Stalin, using them as slave labour, seeing them as Untermenschen, taking away privileges and committing random acts of rape, pillage, destruction and murder to subdue them. It would be before long that a guerrilla resistance arose and because of this everyone rallied around Stalin as the lesser evil. He in his ‘wisdom’ had of course foreseen this attack from the fascist traitors. The intentions of his ‘clever preparations’ disguised as military exercises now became clear to all. Stalin had also issued a scorched earth policy which would make Germany’s supply situation in this huge country worse. Soviet industry produced weapons full time and the entire populace rose to support the Soviet war effort against the barbaric invaders, spurred by state propaganda to do so. In the meantime, Minsk finally fell on August 1st, but with 200.000 casualties for Germany and over 290.000 for the Soviets and the path to Moscow seemed clear to an overconfident Hitler. Soviet resistance combined with guerrilla war and German supply problems slowed the German advance down and it would grind to a halt soon. In August German armies reached Kiev which Soviet generals decided to abandon after a short battle in order to avoid a massive encirclement by the Germans who could break their weak flanks. As The Wehrmacht went further, they went slower. Guerrillas attacked their supply lines and living off the land was not possible due to the Soviet Union’s scorched earth policies. Also, the Red Army blew up many bridges the Germans would use before leaving. The logistical situation was far from optimal by September. Due to supply problems and strong, but costly Soviet resistance the offensive grinded to a halt on a line running from the Finnish Gulf through Smolensk all the way to the Sea of Azov with heavily fortified pockets of resistance on the Crimea around Sevastopol. The Axis had advanced far due to their strengths and Soviet weaknesses and deficiencies, but overall Operation Barbarossa had been a major strategic failure since it had failed to knockout the USSR in one fell swoop and German forces were still far from Moscow, the Volga Bend or even the highly industrialized Donets Basin. After four months of relentless advance and defeat upon defeat with hundreds of thousands of casualties, the Red Army had grinded the Germans to a halt. Germany had suffered some 400.000 deaths in the process (compared to 650.000 Soviet deaths and some 100.000-150.000 POWs). The USSR mobilized its enormous military-industrial complex and the second phase could begin.
 

John Farson

Banned
Very good. However, I got one quibble. OTL, one of the Finnish prerequisites for joining in the war against the USSR was that Finnish troops would not cross the Finno-Soviet border before a Soviet incursion. Indeed, in the morning of 25 June the Soviet Air Force launched an air offesive against Finland; in response, Finland's prime minister J.W. Rangell observed that Finland was in a Continuation War with the Soviet Union. After this, the Finns crossed the border.

So I think that in this TL also the Soviets bomb Finland on the 25th (give or take a day), which then leads to Finland joining in on Barbarossa. However, the stiff Soviet resistance against the Germans may very well lead the Finnish political and military leadership to question Germany's chances already during the summer (in OTL, doubts were first raised when the Germans failed to take Moscow in December, with Stalingrad being the final straw).
 

Communist Wizard

Interesting, though I would (somewhat unsurprisingly, I suppose, but honestly) give the USSR a better situation than even what you gave it.
OTL, Stalin had began mobilisation in June (by that time it was painfully obvious even to Stalin) and in so doing had created the worst possible situation in late June. Mobilisation saw the Red Army coming in from the interior, while supplies (including the Red Army's newer equipment) were still at the border and troops at the front were inadequate. Had Stalin not mobilised later, he would have preserved some of his forces in the interiorof the USSR insead of having them surrounded while they were in transit. The supplies captured/destroyed in OTL would in large part had also been on the interior. The Germans would have captured territory but not destroyed the Red Army which would be coming in rom the interior.
Of course, that's not the point here: The point here is that if the Red Army had not suffered the crushing defeat of OTL it would have preserved much of the newer equipment and supplies, as well as possibly even officers. Had it been ready, the German advance would be slow and the Luftwaffe could have been outnumbered in the sky, instead of the Soviet airforce being bombed out completely from the relevant fronts and bing forced to rebuild over the next few years.
You mention "only" 2,000 T-34s and KV-1 tanks. There were 3,600 tanks slated for Barbarossa, not all of which were the modern tanks of the German Army. The Red Army's difficulty were that these tanks were mobilised in June and in transit or at the border but unmanned, and were simply destroyed or captured over the course of 1941. A similar story pervades all other sectors of the Red Army, such as trained soldiers, aircraft, etc. Without similar losses, however, the German offensive would have likely been extremely slow and stopped by fall. The fact that the German Army managed to destroy much of the better Soviet Army and still faced difficulties in 1941 points to what problems they would face with an intact Red Army.
What Germany certainly had was tactical superiority, especially in officer class. However, every peacetime army has it's cobwebs and politically-appointed oficers. The Germans cleared it out the cobwebs, the Soviets didn't. But a lot of the quality officers were lost in OTL 1941, and in any case the problem would be not be as serious as the Germans would wish.
Therefore, your scenario seems highly optimal for the Germans. The German blitzkrieg was nothing new to the Soviets, who had "deep penetration" doctrine in any case, and the Germans would be butting their heads against prepared defences unlike OTL. The Germans had trouble getting past the few defences that were prepared in OTL, so I would really see them stopped somewhere along the Stalin Line, with much fewer encirclements. And the Crimean Peninsula would certainly hold along Perekop.
 

Onkel Willie

Communist Wizard said:
Interesting, though I would (somewhat unsurprisingly, I suppose, but honestly) give the USSR a better situation than even what you gave it.
OTL, Stalin had began mobilisation in June (by that time it was painfully obvious even to Stalin) and in so doing had created the worst possible situation in late June. Mobilisation saw the Red Army coming in from the interior, while supplies (including the Red Army's newer equipment) were still at the border and troops at the front were inadequate. Had Stalin not mobilised later, he would have preserved some of his forces in the interiorof the USSR insead of having them surrounded while they were in transit. The supplies captured/destroyed in OTL would in large part had also been on the interior. The Germans would have captured territory but not destroyed the Red Army which would be coming in rom the interior.
Of course, that's not the point here: The point here is that if the Red Army had not suffered the crushing defeat of OTL it would have preserved much of the newer equipment and supplies, as well as possibly even officers. Had it been ready, the German advance would be slow and the Luftwaffe could have been outnumbered in the sky, instead of the Soviet airforce being bombed out completely from the relevant fronts and bing forced to rebuild over the next few years.
You mention "only" 2,000 T-34s and KV-1 tanks. There were 3,600 tanks slated for Barbarossa, not all of which were the modern tanks of the German Army. The Red Army's difficulty were that these tanks were mobilised in June and in transit or at the border but unmanned, and were simply destroyed or captured over the course of 1941. A similar story pervades all other sectors of the Red Army, such as trained soldiers, aircraft, etc. Without similar losses, however, the German offensive would have likely been extremely slow and stopped by fall. The fact that the German Army managed to destroy much of the better Soviet Army and still faced difficulties in 1941 points to what problems they would face with an intact Red Army.
What Germany certainly had was tactical superiority, especially in officer class. However, every peacetime army has it's cobwebs and politically-appointed oficers. The Germans cleared it out the cobwebs, the Soviets didn't. But a lot of the quality officers were lost in OTL 1941, and in any case the problem would be not be as serious as the Germans would wish.
Therefore, your scenario seems highly optimal for the Germans. The German blitzkrieg was nothing new to the Soviets, who had "deep penetration" doctrine in any case, and the Germans would be butting their heads against prepared defences unlike OTL. The Germans had trouble getting past the few defences that were prepared in OTL, so I would really see them stopped somewhere along the Stalin Line, with much fewer encirclements. And the Crimean Peninsula would certainly hold along Perekop.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comments, but I was counting on the Red Army's deficiencies to explain early German success. The Red Army (as you have noticed) is in much better shape and the Germans have come only half as far as IOTL and are far from Moscow and nowhere near the Volga Bend. Also IOTL the Red Army had 800.000 KIA and 3.3 million POWs. In the last paragraph of chapter 1 I put down casualty estimates far lower. Anyway, wait until you see the coming winter offensive ;)....
 

Archdevil

Great premise.

If the Soviets lose less of their western territories, their industries there remain intact and consequently their supply situation for counteroffensives is much better.

More T-34s and other equipment in late 1941 and 1942...

The Soviet reliance on Lend-Lease will also be much less in this case.
 

Onkel Willie

Update time :D. Tell me what you think. Ideas and suggestions are welcome :).



Chapter II: Consolidation, Pearl Harbor and Turning the Tide, September 1941 – December 1942.​


The first phase of the war was now over and a second phase of consolidation and counteroffensives could begin which would turn the tide in favour of the Allied powers of Great Britain and the Soviet Union. The enormous industrial complexes of Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, Voronezh, Kharkov, Magnitogorsk and Chelyabinsk would start to affect the balance of power on the eastern front. Thousands of T-34s, KV-1s and MiG-3s would begin to come off the assembly lines over the next few months to equip millions of fresh soldiers and the critical first stage of the invasion was over for the Soviet Union. For Germany it was not as it was faced with the prospect of protracted war in the vast steppes to the east. Many of Hitler’s generals favoured a defensive strategy behind the Dnieper river to consolidate and then bleed any Soviet offensives to death, more so with the onset of Russia’s cold winter. Hitler, however, ignored them and saw the offensive as the best defence in the belief that his earlier successes against the Red Army could be repeated. This was confirmed by a number of unsuccessful small scale Soviet offensives around the Finnish Gulf to push the Germans away from Leningrad and back to the Daugava River. The German army’s successes were definitely beginning to affect Hitler’s thinking at this time. Moscow’s British allies had by now scored their own victory after a number of tactical successes in Operation Crusader which had relieved besieged Tobruk and in which all the territory captured by Rommel in March and April was retaken except for garrisons at Sollum and Bardia, setting the frontline at El Agheila once again. Moreover, light was shining on the end of the tunnel as US entry into the war seemed ever more likely.

Hitler ordered a number offensives in September and October 1941 which failed to make any significant gains against a well entrenched Russian army or any changes in the strategic situation. And the German army was also quite a bit overstretched with a 1.500 kilometre long front running from the Finnish Gulf all the way to the Sea of Azov. The Red Army itself also had to consolidate after the strong German blows in the first few months which had inflicted heavy casualties. Stalin ordered an offensive to retake Smolensk which was a vital key on the route to Moscow, confident that the worst was over and that now was the time to press on, but his offensive also failed and reaped high casualties for negligible gains. German forces cut off a Soviet salient as Stalin ordered the attack to continue at all cost and it cost him some 400.000 men over the period September-November 1941 although the Germans themselves lost 300.000 men too. After this one time intervention Stalin recognised that he should leave the war to his generals since he clearly had little knowledge of modern warfare. His most successful and popular general Zhukov was appointed by him to plan a general counteroffensive for sometime around December or January while Hitler ordered planning for a winter offensive of his own. The Germans, however, were suffering from their initial lack of preparation for a long war as winter began. The Russian winter was very cold and German soldiers were not equipped with winter clothing and had to resort to putting newspapers and straw in their sleeves and pants to stay warm. Their tanks and other vehicles often refused to start due to the cold and hay was put around them to keep them warm, but this had the unfortunate consequence of attracting mice who chewed through the wiring of these vehicles. Many soldiers were dying from frostbite, gangrene or disease compounded by troublesome supply lines which made addressing these problems difficult at best and so many thousands of German soldiers were temporarily or permanently put out of commission by ‘General Winter’ without the Soviets having fired a single shot. The Red Army on the other hand was well prepared for a winter campaign although this did not equate to doctrinal superiority of any kind. Use of weather factors was a given under these circumstances since a summer offensive would be suicide against the Germans in present conditions. Zhukov planned an offensive in the eastern Ukraine where a German salient jutted into Soviet lines towards Donetsk, but he was pre-empted by Hitler who had rekindled his obsession of conquering the Ukraine and Caucasus, also known as the Southern Resource Area. The reason for this was that the swath of land between Smolensk and Moscow was too heavily defended for a successful, quick victory and conquest of Moscow. Little did he know that the British ULTRA could read Enigma code and gave their intelligence to the Russians.

German forces attacked in late November after a period of recovery from losses and resupply after the unsuccessful September and October offensives with the intent of advancing toward the Don River and seizing the industrialized Donets Basin and then consolidate for a final strike into the Caucasus in spring 1942. This was very clearly a very optimistic outlook which Hitler’s generals didn’t share. Yet Hitler becoming more and more convinced of his generals’ incompetence and grew isolated from the reality of war. As there were more failures, Hitler did the opposite of Stalin and tightened control to micro manage the war and shoved his generals aside. He blamed them for the lack of success since they didn’t carry out his orders right in his opinion. All successes so far, according to Hitler, were attributable to his own genius and he fired a number of generals for their overt criticism of his strategies. The offensive, however, seemed to start out well as the Germans advanced at least 200 kilometres from Zaporozhye on the Dnieper within less than two months time in spite of the problems caused by the freezing cold winter while Zhukov built up his strength behind the Donets River. While he launched his counteroffensive on December 25th 1941, America had entered the war. Japan believed the US to be aggressive and drawing upon their experiences from the Russo-Japanese War, they believed a quick knockout blow would do the trick. They attacked Pearl Harbor and destroyed the US Navy’s ships there in the hopes of a free hand in Southeast Asia. It did the opposite was it inflamed opinion against Japan, enraging over 130 million Americans who wanted to raze Japan to the ground in revenge. America too mobilized its vast industrial potential and a giant had awoken and rose to the aid of the battered USSR and Britain. They would fight and provide more help with Lend-Lease aid.

While in Asia Japan went on a rampage and ran over much of Southeast Asia, Zhukov unleashed the full force of his army in a major winter counteroffensive. 1.5 million men, 6.500 tanks, 5.500 aircraft and 25.000 artillery pieces (including the dreaded Katyushas) unleashed a firestorm, the fury of Mother Russia. The opposing German, force, however was much smaller and not prepared for what would be the largest offensive in the history of warfare. Germany fielded 800.000 men (excluding some Italian, Hungarian and Romanian auxiliary forces), 2.700 tanks, 3.000 aircraft and some 16.000 artillery pieces including the nebelwerfer. Zhukov who had by now moved his forces to Kharkov came down from the north and bench pressed them all against the Sea of Azov in the largest cauldron battle in history, seemingly out of nowhere, and the thin salient which Hitler’s generals had warned for was cut off as the flanks collapsed under the weight. For once the Red Army had a total superiority in all fields (armour, air support, materiel etc.). Soviet air superiority was aided by the Allied bombing campaign against German cities. One thousand plane raids were beginning to devastate German cities such as Hamburg, Kiel, Berlin, Schweinfurt, Essen and so on, unleashing firestorms of unseen size and hampering German industry and transport. General Von Manstein, perhaps the greatest strategist in the German army, argued with Hitler for a breakout attempt of the encircled forces and Hitler conceded to his greatest general. A number of forces of Army Group South which hadn’t been encircled counterattacked from the outside, their forces centred around the 4th Panzer Army of general Hermann Hoth. They made something of a dent, but against the enormous concentration of Soviet forces they failed to achieve a lasting breakthrough although they got within 60 kilometres of their target. By the end of January 1942 they were totally rebuffed and a winter siege began for the encircled forces with breakout attempts being unsuccessful. With lack of supplies and cold winter weather causing frostbite and gangrene among others, the situation deteriorated rapidly, more so with dwindling supplies of food, ammunition and spare parts and without alternatives Hitler ordered them to stand their ground while the Luftwaffe brought in totally inadequate amounts of supplies (about a fifth to a quarter of the required quantities). Red Army forces in a stunning and unexpected turn of events crushed the German force to death slowly, like a constrictor. With half the men disease ridden, flea infested and nearly starved to death and forced to eat their own horses and even dead, about 120.000 survivors starving and outnumbered surrendered after a fierce resistance in April 1942 as the spring rains set in and turned the ground into sludge. This was the largest surrender in German history and a major blow to Hitler and his cronies although propaganda cleverly disguised it as a heroic last stand. This was a turning point on the eastern front and Army Group South was routed by Red Army, retaking Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye and crossing the Dnieper. On other fronts there were victories too as Hitler moved forces south. Smolensk was retaken in June, and Tallinn and Mogilev in July 1942.

Hitler at this point decided to take some more drastic steps. He ordered the return of the Africa Corps and Rommel so they could serve on the eastern front, thereby abandoning Mussolini and denuding his southern flank in spite of desperate Italian requests for help. He needed to as the Crimean was cleared out in September and Minsk retaken by Soviet armies in October 1942. The frontline was now running from Riga on the Daugava river, through Minsk to Parakop on the Black Sea coast. The Soviet Union, in other words, now clearly held the initiative after the shattering German defeat. In Asia the tide had turned too after the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway in which the Imperial Japanese Navy had been defeated and the New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Guadalcanal campaigns had begun in an effort to roll back Japanese forces all the way to Tokyo.

In Europe the tide further turned against Germany with a successful Anglo-American landing in Sicily in September which coincided with the start of the Battle of Minsk, Minsk would eventually fall the following month. This landing was after Allied forces had quickly overrun Italian defences in Libya with a series of devastating defeats for the Italian army which had no help apart from a few Luftwaffe fighters and fighter bombers which chronically lacked fuel. Libya and Tunisia had finally been cleared out in July 1942 with Italian soldiers surrendering in droves. Upon the entry of Anglo-American troops into Tunisia, large numbers of Vichy French soldiers and commanders switched sides and air bases in French Tunisia and Algeria were opened to Allied aircraft who proceeded to pulverize Italian defences and infrastructure on Sicily. 160.000 US and British soldiers landed on Sicily and quickly established a beachhead. Only 20.000 German soldiers and a 500 plane strong Luftwaffe detachment were available to assist Italian forces which numbered 230.000 men and were lacking in decent armour. German forces fought to the best of their abilities with the new Panther tank which was a nasty surprise for the Sherman tank. The Germans scored a number of tactical victories, but failed to achieve any strategic victory. Sicily was in Allied hands by the start of October and the Allies immediately pushed for a follow-up invasion of Italy and landed at Messina and Salerno and again the few German forces that were there (including some SS Panzer Divisions) resisted fiercely and inflicted heavy casualties, but the Italian army performed even worse than before due to lack of morale. This signalled the start of the third and last phase of the war in Europe: the endgame.
 

Archdevil

Give us some time.

Cool, it will be a much shorter war, end is in 1943, I guess.

Postwar will be interesting, with a relatively much stronger USSR (not losing upwards of 25 million people can only help).
 

aktarian

uestion: how severe were german logisticproblems in this TL really? They have shorter distances to go, wouldn't that mean more stuff can reach the front?

OTL problems weren't so much that there was no stuff to send but that there were bottle necks which prevented timely dispatches. If front is shorter then regauging can be done properly (or at least better) so stuff can be shipped directly from Germany to front.
 

Onkel Willie

aktarian said:
uestion: how severe were german logisticproblems in this TL really? They have shorter distances to go, wouldn't that mean more stuff can reach the front?

OTL problems weren't so much that there was no stuff to send but that there were bottle necks which prevented timely dispatches. If front is shorter then regauging can be done properly (or at least better) so stuff can be shipped directly from Germany to front.
Click to expand...

They were probably slightly less bad than OTL due to shorter distances to the front. OTOH, the Red Army was prepared for war ITTL. Scorched earth policies were much more effective than OTL with bridges rigged to blow from the start, destruction of roads, railroads etc.
 

aktarian

Onkel Willie said:
They were probably slightly less bad than OTL due to shorter distances to the front. OTOH, the Red Army was prepared for war ITTL. Scorched earth policies were much more effective than OTL with bridges rigged to blow from the start, destruction of roads, railroads etc.
Click to expand...

OK, that makes sense.....
 

Onkel Willie

Update time :D, Any suggestions on the post-war world are welcome :). Tell me what you think.



Chapter III: Endgame, December 1942 – November 1944.​


The war had now entered its final stages and generals on both sides recognised it and it made them more determined to continue the fight. Especially German generals, many of whom were of nobility, were not about to let their country be overrun by the communist hordes even though the situation seemed hopeless. The Red Army held a line from Riga on the Baltic coast all the way to Parakop on the Black Sea, west of the Crimean Peninsula. In Italy, Allied forces had liberated everything up to Naples and were about to march on Rome. At this point the government lacked any kind of faith in Mussolini due to the disasters they blamed him for. The Grand Council of Fascists convened in Rome under orders of King Victor Emmanuel III and Mussolini was arrested when he arrived. Shortly hereafter the King requested an armistice from the Allies and surrendered in January 1943. Hitler was furious and responded by occupying the northern half of the country which was still under his control and then set up a puppet government known as the Fascist Republic of Italy under a rescued Mussolini who was appointed Viceroy and Duce. New frontlines were set north of Rome after Allied forces took that city and the Germans would defend the mountainous peninsula fiercely to safeguard their southern flank, but the Germans could no longer prevail. The Red Army was advancing every day, Italy was half overrun and threatening Germany’s southern flank and one thousand plane raids destroyed German cities and industrial centres on a nearly daily basis. In December 1942 it was once again time for the Red Army’s winter offensive and the Germans falsely assumed it would be in the south to capture Romania’s Ploiesti oilfields and cut off Germany from its fuel. Instead it came in the north as Stalin wanted to get to German soil as soon as possible and exact revenge upon the Germans.

The offensive went ahead in December almost a year after the Soviet Union’s first successful major counteroffensive, but this time the Red Army held all the cars. Red Army forces attacked and drove the last German forces out of Belarus into Poland and captured Bialystok by January. Forces further north they pushed the Germans across the Neman River and entered East Prussia, German soil. The Red Army almost immediately went on a spree of rape, pillage and murder like the Germans had done the previous year. The Soviets were thirsty for revenge and had Stalin’s tacit approval. Königsberg, the East Prussian capital, was sacked and burnt down as the worst example. It was said that no woman went unspoiled in East Prussia after Russian soldiers arrived. The German navy started to evacuate tens of thousands of civilians who were fleeing west as the German army was in the frontlines trying to slow the advancing Russians. Due to the fact that the winter offensive was expected to come south in the western Ukraine, Army Groups North and Centre were not well prepared. Army Group North retreated while Army Group Centre was all but destroyed, losing seventeen divisions out of twenty-five available against an enormous Soviet force (massive numerical superiority was a Soviet trade mark by now and in line with ‘Deep Battle Doctrine’). The Soviet offensive petered out somewhat on the 1941 border between the two countries except in East Prussia, but a follow-up offensive followed in the western Ukraine which smashed Army Group South. The Germans retreated west and in April 1943 all of the Soviet Union’s pre-war territories had been restored to it and Finland had been occupied. Soviet forces further pulverized Romanian forces upon which King Michael II deposed military dictator Ion Antonescu and requested an armistice from Moscow. Stalin acquiesced, but occupied the entire country as well.

The Western Allies were making less progress on the Italian boot which was easy to defend with its mountainous terrain. Since the fall of Rome little progress had been made at all for high death tolls. With this, Churchill’s ‘soft underbelly’ strategy had failed, a strategy which American generals had never wanted anyway. They had wanted a landing in northern France in 1942 already, but this area had been too heavily defended and air power had been still in favour of the Germans back then. In 1943 this was different as divisions and Luftwaffe assets were sent east to stop the Soviet behemoth and so France was chosen (the Balkans were dismissed as this region had even worse terrain than Italy in many cases). Landing craft were built, ships were built, troops gathered and stockpiles readied for this massive amphibious operation. The US Army by now had quite some experience in amphibious operations due to their island hopping campaign in the Pacific Ocean against Japan. The plan was to land at Calais, which was the most obvious point, but not strongly enough defended anymore to repel an Allied landing. Twelve divisions landed on June 18th 1943 under heavy fire from coastal batteries although Allied battleships and bombers had already taken out many of them. Coastal defences were strong with bunkers, minefields and artillery support, but the Allies had air superiority. A beachhead was established shortly hereafter and Calais was held by Allied forces and the navy brought in reinforcements through the port, including heavy artillery which proceeded to pound German defences. Death tolls were very high and German panzer divisions counterattacked only to suffer even higher casualties from Allied air attacks. Surprisingly, the Germans still managed to contain the pocket for at least a another month after the landing. The Calais Pocket didn’t last as a now 500.000 men strong force broke out from their confined space in late July 1943 and took Dunkirk before the end of the month, thereby starting the liberation of France.

On the eastern front, the Red Army smashed its way through Poland. They had liberated Warsaw in June after some fierce battles with the Germans who were now fighting for the existence of their country. Danzig, Lodz and Krakow had all fallen by the end of the month and still Hitler stubbornly refused to surrender even with this hopeless situation. By now the full scope of the horrors of the Nazi regime were unravelled in a clever Soviet propaganda campaign. Concentration camps like Auschwitz were discovered in Poland with their inmates left behind in the retreat. They were disease ridden, infected, severely malnourished, covered in fleas and looking like walking corpses. The ‘liberators’ provided them with food, clothing and improved their barracks to be true homes to serve until better housing could be found. The horrors the Jews had undergone were shown to the world (and not because Stalin was a Jew friend, but to make the Soviet Union look better). The Balkan countries, in the meantime, had by now all fallen to Stalin like dominoes except for Greece. Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia had all been conquered by the Red Army by July and Slovakia and Hungary stood poised to fall too. The Western Allies landed in southern France now too with weak resistance as German forces were too spread out to deal with all of this. Paris was liberated on September 1st 1943 and Charles de Gaulle triumphantly marched into the city ahead of his Free French. France was largely liberated by October and by now the Red Army had reached the Oder River and was preparing for a final thrust toward Berlin. In the west the Low Countries still remained occupied as well as Alsace-Lorraine. US Forces had great difficulty in capturing this region due to German reinforcements and unfavourable weather. It was decided upon to move north into Belgium and the Netherlands to circumvent the Siegfried Line and capture the Ruhr Area, crippling Germany’s war making potential. This went more easily although weather in the period October-November was still unfavourable and there were logistical problems as the Germans destroyed roads, railroads and bridges as they retreated. Belgium was liberated in early November 1943 and by now the Germans were in full retreat and so Allied forces pushed all the way into the southern Netherlands where they were held back by defences on the Rhine, Waal and Meuse rivers.

In early November Berlin was already encircled and Hitler had made the east front priority number one over all others which explained the sudden speed of things in the west. Hitler had set up shop in Hannover as 2 million Red Army soldiers, 7.500 tanks, 6.500 aircraft and 40.000 artillery pieces were readied to storm Berlin. The rest of the Red Army went further west while the Siege of Berlin commenced. In Berlin fierce street-to-street battles were fought with three to one casualty rates in favour of the Germans, but it was to no avail. Only 150.000 men with some 1.500 tanks and little air support were in the Berlin Defence Area by now and they were lacking in supplies. They couldn’t fight a force thirteen times larger for long. After two weeks of massacring, 50.000 survivors surrendered on November 20th 1943. Berlin had fallen and Germany was reduced to a rump. At this point Hitler attempted to flee north and get a U-Boat, but his disguise was seen through by NKVD political commissars who arrested him in Bremen. Mussolini, who had been rescued by SS commandos under Otto Skorzeny, managed to get to Spain disguised as a weak old man successfully. From there he would flee to Brazil where he would remain for now. On December 5th 1943 Soviet and Western Allied forces met on the river Rhine while the Red Army wiped out the last vestiges of German resistance in Denmark and Austria. Generals Zhukov and Eisenhower met in Kaiserslautern on the west bank of the Rhine where Soviet forces had a beachhead by now. They shook hands in one of the most famous moments captured on film, the first meeting of the Soviet and Anglo-American armies. Germany’s interim government under general Erwin Rommel eventually surrendered On December 7th 1943 as resistance by now was no longer possible. The war in Europe was over and only Japan had to dealt with.

Japanese forces had been defeated at Tarawa and the Americans were preparing for landings at Saipan, the last major Japanese base in the Pacific which could also serve as a base to bomb Japan. A number of US naval assets such as USS Texas were now redeployed to the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic. British battleships and aircraft carriers including HMS Illustrious, Formidable, Victorious, Ark Royal and Eagle who nicely complemented the superior US Navy were transferred too. The Saipan campaign was brought forward due to the end of the war in Europe and 15 fleet carriers, eight battleships, 40 submarines and 90 destroyers attacked the smaller Japanese force and the aircraft bombs and battleship shells pummelled the island’s defenders. Thousands of shells and 1000 and 2000 lbs bombs laid waste to coastal defences and 180.000 men landed on May 15th 1944. The fighting was fierce regardless of bombardment since the Japanese held out in caves in the inner part of the island and raided US lines. The Japanese resisted fiercely and even fought on with samurai swords if they ran out of ammunition and committed ritual suicide rather than being captured. Progress was slow in the mountainous inner part of Saipan which was often known as ‘Death Valley’. The 31.000 strong garrison was eventually cleared out with flamethrowers and the last 2.000 Japanese made one final suicide charge on enemy lines and actually overran an entire battalion. The island was in US hands by June 7th. British forces also launched an amphibious operation of their own and invaded the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with their own support of five aircraft carriers, six battleships and numerous support vessels. They would be in British hands by July 1944 while the US Air Force launched one thousand plane B-29 raids against Japanese cities. 67 Japanese cities would be destroyed by the end of the war with incendiary bombs. Britain invaded Burma and defeated Japanese forces there and pressed on into Thailand, Malaya and French Indochina by August. Inspired by Germany, the US Navy and Royal Navy also began to use submarine warfare (wolf pack tactics) to target Japanese merchant shipping and starve the Home Islands to death.

Stalin, in the meantime, was under pressure from Roosevelt and Churchill to abandon his non-aggression pact and join in the war against Japan and so he did. 800.000 men under the command of now marshal Zhukov invaded Manchuria in August. He squashed the Kwantung Army and met with communist guerrillas under Mao Zedong who received new Soviet equipment such as T-34, KV-1 and IS-1 tanks as well as MiG-3 and Yak-3 fighter planes and help in the shape of funds and military advisors. Soviet forces pressed on and decisively beat Japanese forces, occupying the entire Korean peninsula where the dictatorial, Stalinist Democratic People’s Republic of Korea under Kim Il-Sung was proclaimed. From Manchuria, the Red Army and Chinese communist forces captured Hebei province. Mao Zedong triumphantly marched into Beijing in September 1944 ahead of his army, newly trained and equipped thanks to Stalin. Mao was heralded as a liberator and a hero and he proclaimed the People’s Republic of China which by late September controlled the provinces of Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and Xinjiang which gave Mao a powerful position to complete his conquest of China after the war. From Korea, the Red Air Force also started to participate in the bombing campaign against Japan and occupied the Japanese southern half of Sakhalin as well as the Kuril Islands. Due to naval blockade, the Imperial Japanese Navy couldn’t field its major warships anymore. The Allied naval blockade was so effective that Japan was slowly being starved to death, deprived of fuel and deprived of the resources necessary to feed Japan’s war machine which was stuttering. There wasn’t even enough fuel and ammunition for 40 divisions and invasion threatened from the north and the south. Moreover, Japan’s allies had been defeated as well. Due to these circumstances Japan decided to surrender over protests from generals who would rather see Japan destroyed than contemplate surrender. In November 1944 a starving, devastated and besieged Japan surrendered.
 

RGB

Xinjiang and Gansu?

I'm not sure when the Communists actually siezed control of those OTL, but it may have been during the Civil War rather than August Storm.
 

Onkel Willie

RGB said:
Xinjiang and Gansu?

I'm not sure when the Communists actually siezed control of those OTL, but it may have been during the Civil War rather than August Storm.
Click to expand...

This is an ATL. TTL's 'August Storm' lasts longer which allows for more operations in China.
 

usertron2020

Donor
How did Ark Royal survive? Why burn Konigsberg? Wasn't Stalin going to seize it for Russia outright? I think it may have been alluded to, but the possession of so much more territory means more than just less disruption to the arms network (fewer factories being moved beyond the Urals). It also means more womanpower for the factories, and more manpower to fight the German Army.
 
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