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The drop off in 4th quarter 1944 is a combination of Germany reducing sorties/sortie times in Italy and the East, poor weather conditions for bombing in winter, and the misguided Allied effort to bomb Berlin during the winter instead of continuing their successful attrition tactics of the...

Germany's food distribution system in WW2 only broke down in the final weeks of the Reich. While severely disrupted before that by Allied air power, and losing most of the continent, hunger never reached the scale and severity it did in WW1 until the system had all but collapsed at the very end.

Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War was reactionary in nature, not aggressive; it never wanted to conquer or dominate the west as its often stereotypical portrayed. Just the opposite, Soviet policy was dominated by the fear of surprise attack by the United States, similar to what happened...

You're making generalizations with no evidentiary proof. The reason Zhukov, Timoshenko, Vasilevsky, etc achieved success in the military was through a mix of luck in surviving the purge and military competence; in Zhukov's case he had the added bonus of being a former cavalryman. A desire for...

As I said above, Molotov is likely to come out on top as the new de facto leader at least until war's end. He was Stalin's de facto successor, and was allied with all major party leaders (And friends with some), none of whom have the ambition to try and seize personal power. He also will have...

Actually ambition in the Soviet government was very limited. Beria was an outlier in that regard, mainly because he only recently attained power and did so by subverting and overthrowing his predecessor. As a whole the members of Stalin's inner circle had been established in their positions for...

The primary motivating factors for the Soviet military and populace were 1. Patriotism 2. Fear of death and 3. A total war mentality engrained since the 1920s.

The GKO and NKO form similar to OTL, with a general power sharing agreement. The military likely gains much greater influence over government, but how much is variable. Official leadership role likely rotates between Stalin's various cronies, as fears of Bonapartism would prevent military...

Still an enormous logistical challenge, and leaves German forces on a massive flank open to counterattack. Blau could never succeed in any form because it was flawed in every way; the logistics didn't exist to sustain operations, and the forces didn't exist to complete operations. Army Group...

For the Luftwaffe: 1st Quarter 1943: 2,354 destroyed, 1,596 damaged (676 training aircraft destroyed, 676 damaged) 2nd Quarter 1943: 3,120 destroyed, 2,521 damaged (497 training aircraft destroyed, 589 damaged) 3rd Quarter 1943: 4,100 destroyed, 3,078 damaged (638 training aircraft...

Afghanistan as a state was already collapsing by the late 1970s; the Soviets could only accelerate the process by polarizing Afghans against the central government, resulting in its eventual destruction. All greater amounts of state terror does is further delegitimize the government and...

The 1973 coup by Mohammad Khan ( An attempt to gain personal power more than anything) destabilized Afghan politics, and his split with the Soviet Union gave impetus for the Afghan communist party to seize power. Following that the communist party's policies caused widespread revolts and unrest...

Afghanistan isn't ungovernable my any means; for decades before the 1973 coup Afghanistan was a stable monarchy that was developing quite well. What happened was that between 1978 and the present multiple civil wars essentially destroyed any kind of national coherency. People no longer...