Challange-Stalin not taken by surprise in 1941.

King Thomas

Banned
Without ASBs, how is it possible to make Stalin aware of what is coming and be at least partly prepared for the German attack, or even launch an attack of his own before the Germans can launch theirs?
 

wormyguy

Banned
He was perfectly aware of what was coming, and he was preparing. Unfortunately, he was in a state of total denial regarding when it was coming.
 

Bearcat

Banned
He was perfectly aware of what was coming, and he was preparing. Unfortunately, he was in a state of total denial regarding when it was coming.

Stalin needed it to happen in 1942. He was a tyrant used to getting what he needed. He terrorized his own intel apparatus into telling him what he wanted to hear.

Unfortunately, Hitler was not so obliging... :eek:

Very hard to change this, regardless of evidence, etc. available, because it really goes to Stalin's character.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Indeed, Stalin knew the exact time and date of the German invasion, he was just in utter and complete denial. In fact, when Timoshenko asked for his permission to prepare the army just in case, Stalin threatened to have him shot for "provoking" a war with Germany.

Just have Stalin actually listen to the information Sorge gave him and the Wehrmacht is going to be in for a nasty surprise.
 
Without ASBs, how is it possible to make Stalin aware of what is coming and be at least partly prepared for the German attack, or even launch an attack of his own before the Germans can launch theirs?

Stalin had very good intelligence, from diverse, well-informed sources, about the plans for and timing of Barbarossa. As far as can be determined, he simply ignored all the signs.
 
Stalin's denial of reality with respect to the impending German invasion would be considered ASB were an AH author to write it. Lots of real leaders of major nations back in the 30's and 40's actually did have the 'Stupid Virus' so often cited in connection to the Draka.
 
An alternative was the pre-WW2 assasination of Stalin by whoever wanted to succeed him. A more clever person, propably someone with military experience, would have been less paranoid and more weary about the German intentions and certainly would have listened to his advisors.
 

King Thomas

Banned
I'm thinking of doing a timeline where Stalin was ready for Barbarossa and launches a surprise attack of his own.
 
King Thomas, I remain someone who doesn't know much about World War 2 (I couldn't rant on about little technical details to do with tanks, aircraft, oil use, supply routes etc), but I imagine that Stalin's early attack will catastrophically fail. This is for one simple reason: army purges completely wrecking the Red Army. Look at how poorly they fared in the Winter War, and imagine what happens when they go up against such a formidable force as the Wehrmacht, with all its modern aircraft, millions of men, superb leaders, and so on. The Soviets may have better armour (in gun and armour terms, at least) with the T-34s and KV-1s, but then again they outtanked, planed, gunned, manned (etc) the Finns by a far greater amount, and they still took massive losses.

And HMS Warspite: Stalin did have military experience, albiet of the wrong type (a Political Commissar in the Russian Civil War.)

Usually, he was very much more perceptive/paranoid than this. It wouldn't have taken him much to notice that, actually, his much vaunted intelligence service, German deserters etc could be telling him something useful. What he does when he realises it, then, is another matter. Ordering his soldiers to dig trenches, and the air force to get ready, perhaps. Keeping men such as Mekhlis and Voroshilov a long, long way from the front lines is probably too much to ask, until they suffer military defeats.
 
the Luftwaffe conducted a number of dangerous and secret overflights of Soviet Territory prior to Barbarossa... maybe the Red Air force or FLAK gets lucky and shoots one or two of them down and a U2 type incident pisses Stalin off that he accepts that Hitler is comming for him
 
Britain making peace with Germany would be the most decisive PoD, now he knows there's no second front.
 
the Luftwaffe conducted a number of dangerous and secret overflights of Soviet Territory prior to Barbarossa... maybe the Red Air force or FLAK gets lucky and shoots one or two of them down and a U2 type incident pisses Stalin off that he accepts that Hitler is comming for him

They shot one down around midnight on the 21st of June, the interrogation revealed several details about the invasion. Of course Stalin ignored them.
 

King Thomas

Banned
Awilla, if he did make an attack, I think it would be sucessful for the first few hours and then fail for the reasons you put forward; he purged all his best officers.
 
the Luftwaffe conducted a number of dangerous and secret overflights of Soviet Territory prior to Barbarossa... maybe the Red Air force or FLAK gets lucky and shoots one or two of them down and a U2 type incident pisses Stalin off that he accepts that Hitler is comming for him

I'm pretty sure that at least one of those overflights crashed (not sure if the Soviets caused it), and cameras with detailed images of russian defenses were recovered.
 
Awilla, if he did make an attack, I think it would be sucessful for the first few hours and then fail for the reasons you put forward; he purged all his best officers.

That last part is debatable. They didnt get to fight in ww2 (obviously) but we dont really know if their skills were better than their rl counter parts (and considering that most of them got their experience from WW1 or the RCW, its a possibility that they could be worse).

Im not saying that the purge was a good thing, it pretty much screwed the Soviet Union over, but you cant say that they were better officers than the actual officers of the war.

Ok sorry for getting off topic. Romania might be pissy about giving oil later if Germany and Italy dont do much to help them, which could lead to a German invasion (or coup attempt) which leads to all sorts of things.
 
Without ASBs, how is it possible to make Stalin aware of what is coming

1. Stalin was aware about what was coming. Soviet forces start mobilizing and deployng to the field in 19-20 of june.

or even launch an attack of his own before the Germans can launch theirs?
2. Soviet Army was in no condition to launch any preventive strikes. Almost all units were in some sort of major training or even only recently formed (such as most armoured and mechanized divisions).

Unfortunately, he was in a state of total denial regarding when it was coming.
Despite of common opinion, Stalin didn't have any precise information about of the date of german invasion. Several potential dates was knonw - in the middle or end of april, 15 or 27 may, 15 june, 22 june, somewhen in july and so on. And more importantly no intelligence sources mentioned unconditional surprise attack. They tell that Germany start with ultimatum of some sort or make peace or conquer England first.
So only when in june, 18 Hitler come to final decision about launch Barbarossa Soviets start moving. Western Military Districts were transformed into fronts, units from inner districts trasnsported to the old border. But 4 days are too little time for mobilizing an army, Soviets need half a month at least.

P.S. Sorry for awful english).
 
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