Americans on the Eastern Front?

What if there had been an agreement between the US and the USSR during the Second World War, to send an American Expeditionary Force into Russia, to fight alongside the Red Army? I'm thinking in between the time America joins the war and the D-Day landings, sometime around 1941-1942?
 

Tellus

Banned
The soviets really REALLY wanted to avoid that. They'd have to be utterly desperate to even consider it, and would probably insist on the same ultra-strict conditions they put on the table in OTL when the allies asked them to use their airspace to bomb Germany. They essentially wanted to own the aircraft and the pilots in question for the duration of the war and they were very worried about western espionage.

Ironically, if you just want Americans on the eastern front, Nazi Germany would probably accept aryan volunteers. In fact I do wonder if there couldnt have been a handful who tried to do just that (obviously of their own initiative) between June and December 41'. A determined American guy with poor political judgment could easily have gone to Spain and joined the Azul Legion.
 
The soviets really REALLY wanted to avoid that. They'd have to be utterly desperate to even consider it, and would probably insist on the same ultra-strict conditions they put on the table in OTL when the allies asked them to use their airspace to bomb Germany. They essentially wanted to own the aircraft and the pilots in question for the duration of the war and they were very worried about western espionage.

There was a French unit fighting in the Eastern Front, though there were probably much more French fighting on the German side.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandie-Niemen
 
As per above, I doubt the Sovs would take it. Besides, considering the Soviet love of Zerg rushing, to put it in the simplest terms, I'm not sure the Americans would exactly approve of their tactical doctrine.
 
If you want Americans on the Eastern Front in a semi-plausible way, I'd suggest a gradual introduction through the Lend Lease ferry pilot system. IOTL, the handover was done here in Fairbanks, Alaska.

If you posit heavier Soviet pilot losses, you could have that handover take place somewhere in the Soviet Union. From there, you could create a chain of events that leads to an American aerial force.
 
The soviets really REALLY wanted to avoid that. They'd have to be utterly desperate to even consider it, and would probably insist on the same ultra-strict conditions they put on the table in OTL when the allies asked them to use their airspace to bomb Germany.
If I remember correctly, Stalin asked Roosevelt for American troops that should fight in the Soviet Union under American command some time in 1941. The Soviets really were that desperate in OTL. It was the Americans who believed that their troops were better deployed elsewhere.
 
As per above, I doubt the Sovs would take it. Besides, considering the Soviet love of Zerg rushing, to put it in the simplest terms, I'm not sure the Americans would exactly approve of their tactical doctrine.

The term "Zerg Rush" is not accurate in this example. The appropriate term when using humans in such tactics is "Dude Swarm".
 

nbcman

Donor
There were US Army Airforce personnel during 1944 during the 'Operation Frantic' shuttle bombing runs that had bombers based in Britain/Italy bombing targets but landing at airfields in the Ukraine.

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

But I doubt seriously the US or British army would be allowed in barring a complete military disaster. The Soviets still remember the 'invasion' of Russia/SU by US, British, Japanese, and others in the aftermath of WWI.
 

backstab

Banned
As per above, I doubt the Sovs would take it. Besides, considering the Soviet love of Zerg rushing, to put it in the simplest terms, I'm not sure the Americans would exactly approve of their tactical doctrine.


Add to that , the way the Russians treat their prisoners , Penal units , treatment of their own men ..... the list goes on. I think that the US would be in for a rude shock.
 
Ironically, if you just want Americans on the eastern front, Nazi Germany would probably accept aryan volunteers. In fact I do wonder if there couldnt have been a handful who tried to do just that (obviously of their own initiative) between June and December 41'. A determined American guy with poor political judgment could easily have gone to Spain and joined the Azul Legion.

there was, in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, several Americans get executed by an American Officer (who later is a LT. in Easy Company in like episode 10). this not unheard of. and the best way to got Americans on the Eastern Front
 
Add to that , the way the Russians treat their prisoners , Penal units , treatment of their own men ..... the list goes on. I think that the US would be in for a rude shock.
I strongly doubt it. Stalin was well aware of the importance of propaganda, and dozens of American journalists were sent into the Union after Pearl Harbour well aware of what conditions were like (though not of the cause behind many of them) and came away with startlingly positive impressions, for the most part, even before their reports were buffed up to give Uncle Joe an image as an intelligent, caring, powerful Eastern FDR. Further, I suspect that your own impressions of how the Soviets cared for their human resources in the military owes as much to the reality of the Eastern Front as distorted Russophobic caricatures. It was brutal and mean and ruthless, surely, but many things - such as the wholesale executions of enemy combatants rather than going through the process of allowing surrender and imprisonment - happened, if not to a similar degree, during the American efforts in the West.

Anyways, if this is going to happen, the best time for it to start would be in late 1941, before Pearl Harbour, with American volunteers being formed into a sort of latter-day Abraham Lincoln brigade, as was done in the Spanish Civil War (and as Franco himself did for Hitler on the Eastern Front). Stalin was very much desperate enough to accept and even plead for such assistance at that time, and once America becomes involved directly in the war it becomes an excellent seed from which a later expeditionary force could sprout. And now I can only fantasize about American commando units landing from Persia to fight in the Caucasus and leading an assault to break the siege of Leningrad in '42... This idea very much pleases me.
 

backstab

Banned
I strongly doubt it. Stalin was well aware of the importance of propaganda, and dozens of American journalists were sent into the Union after Pearl Harbour well aware of what conditions were like (though not of the cause behind many of them) and came away with startlingly positive impressions, for the most part, even before their reports were buffed up to give Uncle Joe an image as an intelligent, caring, powerful Eastern FDR. Further, I suspect that your own impressions of how the Soviets cared for their human resources in the military owes as much to the reality of the Eastern Front as distorted Russophobic caricatures. It was brutal and mean and ruthless, surely, but many things - such as the wholesale executions of enemy combatants rather than going through the process of allowing surrender and imprisonment - happened, if not to a similar degree, during the American efforts in the West.

Anyways, if this is going to happen, the best time for it to start would be in late 1941, before Pearl Harbour, with American volunteers being formed into a sort of latter-day Abraham Lincoln brigade, as was done in the Spanish Civil War (and as Franco himself did for Hitler on the Eastern Front). Stalin was very much desperate enough to accept and even plead for such assistance at that time, and once America becomes involved directly in the war it becomes an excellent seed from which a later expeditionary force could sprout. And now I can only fantasize about American commando units landing from Persia to fight in the Caucasus and leading an assault to break the siege of Leningrad in '42... This idea very much pleases me.


Stalin is not going to change the way he fights his war just to apease the United States. Any US unit fighting on the Eastern Front will be subjected to the real meaning of Total War.
 
if the germans were more successful in their drive into the Caucuses you could see some western troops fill in the southern part of the line especially if the turks join the axis. there is a decent tl of this in Tsouras' Third Reich Victorious
 
Not if the situation at all resembles OTL. But it is possible with something with a qualifer like:

PoD: Mussolini doesn't attack Greece and Yugoslavia reluctantly allies with Germany. This leads to Germany invading the Soviet Union in something like early May instead of June. These extra six weeks are critical, as is a second windfall. Hitler is seriously injured in a car accident, and dies after two weeks of intensive care. Eventually, Heydrich replaces him as Fuhrer.

The Wehrmacht thusly doesn't stop to encircle Kiev, but manages to take Moscow, which causes the Soviet Logistical Grid to snap and more and more encirclements follow.

1942 becomes a complete rout as the Wehrmacht drives to the Volga Bend. By this point Stalin himself has been shot in a desperate coup to avoid disaster, and the Soviet Government that follows--aware of horrific atrocities being committed against their own people, the prospect of outright extinction in the hands of the German Occupiers--finally give up on anything short of survival. The desperate Russians offer a blank check to the Allies--just try to save their people from the German butchery.

The Allies thus line up in the Urals and Kazhakstan, to begin a grand campaign to fight to the Atlantic Ocean--in a war that will probably require nuclear weapons to defeat the Wehrmacht.
 
It would be a breech of Soviet Neutrality with Japan. America sending troops through Russia would lead a war between Japan and the USSR.
 
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