AHC/WI: Soviet Invasion of Western Europe after WWII

Is it possible for the Soviet Union to decide to invade Western Europe in some reverse Operation Unthinkable after the Second World War? They had the numerical superiority on land, and much shorter supply lines than America. The US had no more nuclear bombs left for a while, and the British, Germans and French would likely not have been able to put up much resistance in the face of the much larger Red Army. The USSR was ruined, but could they somehow decide to go to war again?

POD is flexible, but keep the timeline as close as possible to OTL.
 

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Big questions. I think the precise phrasing of the question matters. Is it possible for them to do it? Maybe. Is it possible for them to decide to do it? Much more doubtful.
1 - what are they trying to achieve politically? It's one thing to say, 'well they could overrun Western Europe'. (Actually even that is at best doubtful.) But Stalin (I assume from your question that we are talking about the period before his death, and probably the period before the Soviet A-bomb test in 1949) was a political animal and he would not have assumed that parking T-34s by the Eiffel Tower would necessarily lead to a positive political result. He had a very recent example of a dictator who had discovered that over-running Europe with his tanks didn't actually solve his problems, but gave him different, bigger ones.
2 - Moscow was busy trying to ingest & digest Eastern Europe. Their control there was far from complete (the Czech coup was not until 1948; I believe in the Ukraine anti-Soviet rebels/ guerrillas were active into the 1950s).
3 - Stalin may also have believed that the chances for expansion from purely political (that word again) action were at least fair, at least until the PCI lost the Italian elections of 1948.
So a decision by Stalin to invade would have to get past a very searching cost-benefit analysis. Probably only possible if he became convinced the Allies were themselves about to attack. (Cough, cough, see my ASB TL, sigged.)
 
By August of 1945, atomic bomb production was at three weapons per month and expected to increase to seven per month by December. This is important, as practically all Soviet logistics into Central Europe are supplied by what is essentially three rail hubs in Poland:

PolandRail.jpg



Given the lack of Soviet anti-strategic air capabilities in the immediate Post-War era, that the U.S. could rapidly eliminate these junctions is a given. From that point, RKKA forces within Germany and Poland can be expected to collapse within six weeks due to a lack of supplies. Meanwhile, without Lend Lease aid, the Soviet state itself will follow within a year.
 
By August of 1945, atomic bomb production was at three weapons per month and expected to increase to seven per month by December. This is important, as practically all Soviet logistics into Central Europe are supplied by what is essentially three rail hubs in Poland:

PolandRail.jpg

Given the lack of Soviet anti-strategic air capabilities in the immediate Post-War era, that the U.S. could rapidly eliminate these junctions is a given. From that point, RKKA forces within Germany and Poland can be expected to collapse within six weeks due to a lack of supplies. Meanwhile, without Lend Lease aid, the Soviet state itself will follow within a year.
Your map is completely unreadable, so I don't see why you are linking it as a source.
 
Hmm, let's say the war on Japan went dragged on longer and bloodier, Decisive Darkness-style, if not quite as dramatic, and the Americans opted to re-place Truman with a significantly more isolationist figure like Dewey or Taft. I could see Stalin getting bolder in such a case. You know, a little bit of Austria here, a little bit of Poland there, cast a greedy eye on Finland, settle a score or two with Tito ... maybe even a re-newed willingness to stoke the flames of civil war in Greece & Italy.
 
You'd need some kind of move from the US to seriously trigger Stalin's paranoia and make him think that he needs to attack right away. And if the nukes used against Japan weren't enough in real life, then I'm not sure what would be enough.
 
You'd need some kind of move from the US to seriously trigger Stalin's paranoia and make him think that he needs to attack right away. And if the nukes used against Japan weren't enough in real life, then I'm not sure what would be enough.
Stalin knew about the nukes already from Soviet spies in the Manhattan Project.
 
You'd need some kind of move from the US to seriously trigger Stalin's paranoia and make him think that he needs to attack right away. And if the nukes used against Japan weren't enough in real life, then I'm not sure what would be enough.
Western moves to restore the German armed forces might do it, though that in turn can't happen before the USSR scares the West enough. Maybe (this is somewhat ASB) aggressive pursuit of Communist guerrillas from Greece into Yugoslavia turning into a full-scale attempt to overthrow Tito? (Not that Stalin liked Tito, but the precedent of Communist government being overthrown by Western invasion would be something he would seek to discourage.) Or a US-led misadventure in Korea and/ or China - but again, ASB given US public opinion. Really, you might just as well posit a sinister Canadian militaristic plot. The fact is that given the war-weariness on both sides the appetite for uncontrollable adventures is low.
 
I think you need another POD or two--maybe a Churchill/*FDR coalition that strikes Stalin as out to get him, but without cutting off the much needed supplies--but I think a big one is either a delayed US nuke program or else bad intelligence for Stalin that makes him think the US has run out of nukes and he has a window of opportunity before the Imperialists use their muscle on him.
 
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