AHC: Have World War Two end with the Soviets taking France

iVC

Donor
Second, the Soviets were absolute crap on the battlefield. Their individual soldiers might have been brave, and stubborn, and resourceful. But the Soviet military as a whole was perhaps the greatest punchline in the history of human warfare. Knowingly or not, they managed to violate almost all of the basic tenants of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz simultaneously. Which highlights perhaps their most damming sin; willful ignorance.

I hope you're trolling, srsly. What about Soltsy defensive operation where Vatutin was able to outmanoeuvre Manstein? Vatutin emphatically did encircle von Manstein (and forced 8th panzer division to suffer heavy losses) and delayed the offensive of Army Group Center in this battle and repeated this at Staraya Russa.

What about italian army and italian high command trying to defend Smolensk? Or italian army performing the Luga Defense operations (which halted the german encirclement of Leningrad for two months)?
 

FBKampfer

Banned
I agree that the Red Army's competence in WW2 was substantially lower than it is given credit for. Even late in the war with things like the Kurland Kessel, they were tactically inferior in many instances to truly rear echelon German units, at least when you get outside of their Mechanized Guards Armies, which were pretty good.

However, consider for a moment that Germany when it invaded the Soviet Union had the resources of most of Eastern Europe and France behind it. They certainly looted the French motor pool, and needed occupied countries industrial centers, not to mention Romanian oil, to function. The Soviets I believe with the resources of Eastern Europe at its back, even with their very real manpower problems in 1945, might have been able to push through into Central Germany and trigger a collapse of the Nazi state, which was certainly under threat from the effects of its growing incompetence at the local level due to the war and the bombings. Basically, if the Germans cannot hold them at Oder, then don't expect them to do it at the Elbe, and don't expect them to hold them at the Rhine, as more and more of their infrastructure and industrial base gets taken, not to mention the issues of discipline that OTL set in badly once the German borders were breached. Desertions, refusal to obey orders, corruption, it all set in frighteningly quick for the Germans once their borders were breached.

Depending on when they start, Poland gives them an even bigger bloody nose than Finnland. If Germany is holding Poland, then we basically have the same situation of the Red Army bleeding itself white fighting across half of Eastern Europe.

If we go the straight through Poland route, firstly they loss one HELL of a lot of men doing it, Poland is a lot bigger than the Karelian peninsula, and the Polish army is actually better equipped than Finnland.

Second, Germany gets to start building up like fucking nuts without anyone slapping their wrists, England and France may actually encourage it, Russia gets no LL, and everyone else starts to flock to England or Germany with Alliances and purchase orders.

Germany gets a hell of a lot of cheap fuel and rare alloys from good ole commie-hating USA, and then say around 1942, Manstein and Von Rundstedt and company school the Red Army for another couple of years before they break (assuming literally everyone else just sits on their ass for the time it takes Germany to fall.

By say 1944, France has built up a hell of a lot, so has the UK, even Italy is doing much better, the USA is getting leery of Russia if they haven't interceded already, and Russia gets to mash its face into the Maginot line.

Stretch things out another couple of years, and guarantee US participation if you want the Soviets conquering EVERYTHING between them and France.


Theres virtually no way they can do it. The sheer manpower requirements are daunting, even assuming the Red Army can magic away its own shortcomings for the first FOUR YEARS of the war.

And stretched out across all of the Europe, with their moronic change in rail gauge, traveling across two war-torn countries, and the Russian logistics are going to be a nightmare.

They can maybe support a few Army Groups, but their own logistics are going to reduce the forces they can field considerably.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
I hope you're trolling, srsly. What about Soltsy defensive operation where Vatutin was able to outmanoeuvre Manstein? Vatutin emphatically did encircle von Manstein (and forced 8th panzer division to suffer heavy losses) and delayed the offensive of Army Group Center in this battle and repeated this at Staraya Russa.

What about italian army and italian high command trying to defend Smolensk? Or italian army performing the Luga Defense operations (which halted the german encirclement of Leningrad for two months)?

A single action does not the Red Army make, and a handful of good marshals and generals does not make up for the political promotions, jailings, sackings, and executions that had been the norm in the USSR.

You want an army not to collapse? The general might be the least important man. You need good, experienced line officers who can command the respect of their men, and you need men who feel at least SOME measure of loyalty to their country.

The Germans had piecemeal successes in 1944 and 1945, but they still ultimately lost. The same is true of the Red Army in early 1941.
 
Have the US buy off on the periphrial strategy so beloved by Churchill & Brooke. When the Red Army comes charging across Germany in 1945 the W Allied armies are to far out of position to do more than seize some ports & coastal enclaves along the French/Belgian/Netherlands coast.
 
What if D-Day fails *and* Germany is close enough to its own atomic weapon that the A-Bomb is used against the Nazis to force a surrender before they can build their own? Then the Soviets move in as the only army in a position to do so, since the British, Americans, and other Western Allied countries don't have any boots on the ground on the continent?
 

FBKampfer

Banned
Have the US buy off on the periphrial strategy so beloved by Churchill & Brooke. When the Red Army comes charging across Germany in 1945 the W Allied armies are to far out of position to do more than seize some ports & coastal enclaves along the French/Belgian/Netherlands coast.

This would be the most plausible probably. Though I highly doubt it would result in Soviet occupation of France. The Allies wouldn't stand for it, and they're more than capable of throwing the Soviets out on their ear.
 

iVC

Donor
You want an army not to collapse? The general might be the least important man. You need good, experienced line officers who can command the respect of their men, and you need men who feel at least SOME measure of loyalty to their country.

Oh, bring it on. Line officers were in dire shortage not because of Stalin Mass Murderings™ but mostly because of field army increased in size from the 1 910 000 in the early 1939 to the 5 080 000 in the May of 1941. Remember that in post-czarist Russia men with 5 years in school was already rated as good junior officer.

at least SOME measure of loyalty to their country

Yes, of course. And it's hard to deny that common soviet rifleman was loyal to the state, to the motherland and to his battle comrades. It would be impossible to force someone to tear down the entire Wermacht battle plan with his bare hands if this man is not motivated and loyal.

What did Halder, Chief of Army General Staff wrote? '26th June. Army Group South is advancing slowly, unfortunately, with considerable loss. Too slow!', '27th June. No calls of surrender was reported at the frontline. Heavy resistance by russians, they are led by talented commanders'. And so it goes. It's impossible to paint the Red Army as a chaotic lowly-spirited horde led by incompetent high command.

David M. Glantz. Barbarossa Derailed, 4-volume book. It should help.
 
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FBKampfer

Banned
Oh, bring it on. Line officers were in dire shortage not because of Stalin Mass Murderings™ but mostly because of field army increased in size from the 1 910 000 in the early 1939 to the 5 080 000 in the May of 1941. Remember that in post-czarist Russia men with 5 years in school was already rated as good junior officer.

All of it played a part. The purges certainly hurt the officer corps, mostly because the officers were wary of drawing any attention to themselves for years onwards. Anonymous mediocrity was far better for ones life expectancy than conspicuous skill. Unless of course one was a stalwart communist, and would never entertain any less than salubrious thoughts about the state.

And the expansion hurt the NCO's more than the officers.



Yes, of course. And it's hard to deny that common soviet rifleman was loyal to the state, to the motherland and to his battle comrades. It would be impossible to force someone to tear down the entire Wermacht battle plan with his bare hands if this man is not motivated and loyal.

What did Halder, Chief of Army General Staff wrote? '26th June. Army Group South is advancing slowly, unfortunately, with considerable loss. Too slow!', '27th June. No calls of surrender was reported at the frontline. Heavy resistance by russians, they are led by talented commanders'. And so it goes. It's impossible to paint the Red Army as a chaotic lowly-spirited horde led by incompetent high command.

David M. Glantz. Barbarossa Derailed, 4-volume book. It should help.

To their unit, and homeland perhaps. But it's fairly well known that the ethnic Russians aside, dear old uncle joe was seen as a bit of a bastard. The commisars were pretty hated, and the state was seen as kinda shitty.

The Nazis really missed a hell of a chance by not levying troops from the Ukraine, and the Baltic states.


And they weren't a chaotic low spirited horde, they we merely an unmotivated, disorganized army led by an incompetent high command.
 

iVC

Donor
The commisars were pretty hated, and the state was seen as kinda shitty.

My own grandfather was born in 1916 and he went through the war from the border to the Rzhev. In 1943 he was badly wounded and for the rest of wartime he was assigned to the rearward AA guns unit at the Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod). And, yes, he was a political commisar (pretty low-level, company level). His unit was smashed to pieces during the first days of the war and twice he was encircled and forced to make his way out along with his men. In July 1941 during the battle of Smolensk he was able to join main army body again. Never he said a bad word about his wartime comrades and never he said a word about someone trying to mock him for his political commisar post (he died in 2006, so he could not be afraid of political consequences anymore).

He was born as seventh son in the Orenburg rural family and for him the army and the state was the one and only option to come and save him and his family (father died in 1917, mother was illiterate and unable to write, several family members died from the famine in 1914-1920s): soviet state was the reason he and his brothers were able to get an education and travel to the big cities outside. He was not alone: most of the men in his unit were like him, from the peasant families, where the soviet bureaucrats were the first men to be interested in them, so they made them an offers to join the army after the school education is over. Army was a prestige organisation in the SU these days. For the many many many ordinary people from the bottom quality of life seems to be better when they were incorporated into the soviet society.

it's fairly well known that the ethnic Russians aside, dear old uncle joe was seen as a bit of a bastard

I doubt your ability to speak about Transcaucasian republics and the Central Asia republics where soviet government acted as benefactor and quality of life progressor.
Baltic States - yes, of course. They felt themselves sovietized forcefully. Western Ukraine - yes, maybe. Ukrainians themselves - I doubt so. A good bunch of soviet high officers were ethic ukrainians and there were none voices of discontent among them until their deaths or in their memoires (or post-mortem notes).
 
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It is one thing that the Red Army would help in the liberation of France, an allied state under occupation. It is another decision entirely that the troops that do this would then stay to occupy France after the German occupation forces there inevitably surrender. Staying in France against the will of the Free French leadership, as well as the US and Britain, and other Allies, would conceivably be seen as nothing short of a Soviet declaration of war on the Western Allies.

After the German troops in France collapse, the Western Allies would be more or less free to ferry troops over. They would be greeted positively by most French, and the Free French would support this move. The Red Army, on the other hand, would be bled white after trudging along several hundred kilometers more. Their supply lines would stretch across the continent. In practice risking going to war against the West over France would be a huge gamble for Stalin, something that would be very hard to justify internationally.

We have OTL examples of Red Army troops entering the territory of occupied states that could be termed Western Allies, to defeat the German troops there - Bornholm and Finnmark. In both cases, the Red Army withdrew by 1946, as per plan.
 

iVC

Donor
And they weren't a chaotic low spirited horde, they we merely an unmotivated, disorganized army led by an incompetent high command.

Okay, let me explain Glantz and other modern historians in my own words.

Initially german forces were using panzer units as main strikeforce with infantry units acting as slow rubber eraser. Initial borderline panzer battles were catastrophic for Red Army tank units which were acting without ability to maintain and repair their machinery. But this tank battles allowed the Red Army to partly draw the infantry formations out from the encirclements and form an uninterrupted line of defense again. Therefore, these tank units died but were also used to win some time to spare.

After the first six weeks of the campaign and surprise wore off, the Soviets reacted well and they had the men, machines and resources to respond. They've playing the game of attrition. By the time Germans reached the Smolencks area, their fast (armored, mechanised and motorised) forces outpaced foot infantry forces. This in turn prevented Germans from effectively encircling Soviets as they simply lacked infantry to do it properly.
The Soviets managed to all but halt the blitzkrieg by launching a series of counterattacks that forced the German Army Group Center to pause. These Soviet offensives, there were four of them, inflicted a series of attritional battles that had a severe depletion effect on Center's infantry formations. This in turn forced the Panzer and motorized elements to act as defensive screens in their own right, holding the line of the "outer encirclement," a function that mobile forces are not suited for.

The resistance encountered in the Smolensk region convinced Hitler to alter his plans for the campaign going forward. He ordered the Smolensk roadblock bypassed and sent General Hoth's panzergruppe north to assist Army Group North in its drive to Leningrad, and he ordered General Guderian's panzergruppe to drive south. The latter action pushed aside a few more Soviet Armies and upon a link-up with Army Group South, another Soviet force was encircled in the vicinity of Kiev, netting another 600,000 Soviet troops in the bag. This diversion of forces from Army Group Center to secure the flanks represents the second phase of Operation Barbarossa. Despite this, soviet forces at the north were able to cling upon the Ladoga-Novgorod fortified zone and hold off the initial attempt to take Leningrad swiftly.

Third phase naturally occurred when the flanks of AG Center were secured and the final thrust on Moscow, Operation Typhoon, began. However, Soviets were able to launch Elnya counteroffensive once more during the August 1941 and when Typhoon started, it was already into the deteriorating weather season, german resources were severely depleted, Soviet were able to relocate industry and mobilize the economic system (because of time spared by sacrificing tank reserves at the initial phase of war). Typhoon exhausted and failed with the Kremlin in sight and Germans suddenly found themselves on the brink of defeat with supply lines overstretched and reserves depleted once again.

On the other side Soviet high command convinced itself that Germans, Army Group Centre in this case, was so overextended that one big offensive will collapse them. While Germans were overextended and their logistics were strained they were nowhere near breaking point and local success was just that, local.

The military strategy Stalin, the Stavka, and Western Main Direction Command pursued was far more sophisticated than previously believed; Stalin, the Stavka, and Timoshenko's Western Main Direction Command employed a strategy of attrition designed to weaken advancing German forces; This attrition strategy inflicted far greater damage on Army Group Center (wear and tear, and losses of 60% of German armor: much of this was permanent loss, and never repaired and replaced back up to original strength) than previously thought and, ultimately, contributed significantly to the Western and Kalinin Fronts' victories over Army Group Center in December 1941 (the greatest one: Time (2 months of stalling)). If it was purely an ASB-luck and Soviets were able to do this in contrary to their own moronic High Command, and despite their army was 'an unmotivated, disorganized army led by an incompetent high command' then maybe all of us should go straight to the land of acid butterflies and fairy ponies.

Vital opportunities were thrown away by Wermacht, never to return.

I recommend you to read Glantz. This series is head and shoulders better and more detailed than other books on Barbarossa.
 
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iVC

Donor
We have OTL examples of Red Army troops entering the territory of occupied states that could be termed Western Allies, to defeat the German troops there - Bornholm and Finnmark. In both cases, the Red Army withdrew by 1946, as per plan.

Would this brief residency of the Red Army on the french soil affect the chances of Parti communiste français to win the elections? Soviets would be looking like a liberators after all.
 
The Gaulleists & other parties would work hard against this. In this scenario Petains government would not be hustled off to Germany, but could reorganize somewhat as the Red Army marches in & the Germans surrender. A lot of Germans would prefer to surrender to Petains police, trading weapons for the hope of a better prison.

I suspect Petains group will seek accomodation with the Gaullists in the hope of saving France from the Reds.
 
Have the US buy off on the periphrial strategy so beloved by Churchill & Brooke. When the Red Army comes charging across Germany in 1945 the W Allied armies are to far out of position to do more than seize some ports & coastal enclaves along the French/Belgian/Netherlands coast.

But I just can't see this happening in this ATL. IOTL throughout WWII Roosevelt & the
American millitary, from Marshall on down,
remained firmly committed to a the-only-way-to-beat- Hitler-is-to-smash-right- @-
him- with-all-we-have strategy(Italy was an exception which in retrospect doesn't look
like a very good idea). This meant a cross-
channel invasion. You'd have to come up with a reason(a VERY good reason)to make
the Americans change their mind in this ATL.
Any takers? No, as I said earlier the only way Stalin could have taken France was
for Operation Overlord to fail.
 
It would require different US leaders. Replace Roosevelt as President & it's unlikely Marshal is advanced over 30+ other Generals senior to him. Many of those retired 1939-41 were fairly conservative in their stratigic thinking. Pick the wrong one for CoS & a President lacking Roosevelt's insight and Churchill might prevail.
 
It would require different US leaders. Replace Roosevelt as President & it's unlikely Marshal is advanced over 30+ other Generals senior to him. Many of those retired 1939-41 were fairly conservative in their stratigic thinking. Pick the wrong one for CoS & a President lacking Roosevelt's insight and Churchill might prevail.
Sure, but without Roosevelt, Lend Lease is less likely to be extended to the Russians. The Soviets had massive food problems during the war and were fed largely from Lend Lease, but more importantly than that, Lend Lease helped to motorize the Red Army. An unmotorized Red Army would never have been able to destroy AGC during Bagration, for example, nor could they have kept an advance going across Ukraine.

There was not political will for Lend Lease outside of how forcefully the President pushed for it, and certainly not to the Soviet Union without his support.
 
It would require different US leaders. Replace Roosevelt as President & it's unlikely Marshal is advanced over 30+ other Generals senior to him. Many of those retired 1939-41 were fairly conservative in their stratigic thinking. Pick the wrong one for CoS & a President lacking Roosevelt's insight and Churchill might prevail.


So are you suggesting a, say, 1940 POD with
Wilkie defeating FDR or FDR, for whatever
reason, not choosing to run for a 3rd term?
 
So are you suggesting a, say, 1940 POD with
Wilkie defeating FDR or FDR, for whatever
reason, not choosing to run for a 3rd term?

Probably require someone replacing Roosevelt in 1936. Marshal had been appointed CoS in 1939 and was well along in purging the old crocks from the army by the 1940 election.
 
Sure, but without Roosevelt, Lend Lease is less likely to be extended to the Russians. The Soviets had massive food problems during the war and were fed largely from Lend Lease, but more importantly than that, Lend Lease helped to motorize the Red Army. An unmotorized Red Army would never have been able to destroy AGC during Bagration, for example, nor could they have kept an advance going across Ukraine.

There was not political will for Lend Lease outside of how forcefully the President pushed for it, and certainly not to the Soviet Union without his support.

We can't dismiss the idea of the US fighting a proxy war, with European lives and US material. The USSR had a lot of resources to mortgage & manufacturing war goods is a way to recapitalize US industry. French purchases 1939-1940 helped restart US industry & selling to the USSR, even if on credit helps continue rebuilding a deteriorated industrial base.
 
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