Different Kursk strategy

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General Zod

Banned
Toppling Churchill is fair game; but who is going to replace him? Clement Atlee? Anthony Eden? The foremost dove in the UK at the time, Lord Halifax, would have no real chance of returning to power, seeing as how he's now in the United States bumbling negotiations.

Hmm, maybe Lord Halifax and Attlee build a coalition after Churchill is toppled. IIRC Attlee was middle of the way as for as war policy was concerned. Not so hawkish as Churchill but not so dovish as Halifax, and was not so prominent in the war effort as to be discredited if it fails. Eden, really not , he was as prominent a member of the hawkish Conservative faction as Churchill, if the nation loses confidence in Winston, Eden shall follow him into discredit.

The obvious problem is that no real peace deal with Hitler can ever be made, because he'd simply break it as he saw fit to do so.

This would likely be the PoV of the ruling elites that to some degree know the nukes are coming and see the point in remaining committed to the war effort. The masses, however, might simply have a crisis of confidence, be fed up with the butcher bill and the sacrifices, and lose the will to fight. I picture the ATL situation where this butterfly occurs as rather akin to what almost happened to the North in 1864: seeing your cause as just, but losing the will to fight because it looks like military impossible to accomplish. The North might well have thrown the towel if the Union had not won any clear victory in Summer-Fall 1864. Why couldn't the same happen to UK and/or USA if attempts to land in Fortress Europe are repeated bloody failures ? The stakes were higher for the Union in the ACW than for the UK and USA during WWII. Again, it's surely not a certain outcome but it is a distinct possibility. If it does not materialize, the Anglo-Americans win WWII in Europe with nukes in 1945-47. But I do not see an irresistible crisis of confidence about the war in the American, or much more likely, British people in 1944-45 as something ASB, if they get out of Italy and France with a bloody nose.

Nothing stops Stalin from sending children out to fight, or old men.

And seasoned German veterans easily make mincemeats of them and noticeably begin to push the crappy Red Army backwards.

Indeed, I see Stalin drafting women to fight the war, perhaps not en masse, but piecemeal. You are correct that this can't go on forever, and this is likely to exacerbate damage to Soviet society, but I think Stalin can still wring out a couple years of crappy manpower while keeping his war economy on third gear.

More like a season of two, with steadily diminishing returns. The Israelis have had the most extensive experience with an drafting both sexes, and according to it, you cannot really keep such a draft activated for more than an handful of months without terribly £$%& the economy. Moreover, the more Soviet war economy deteriorates from the lack of work force, the worse the wasting of manpower resources shall become, accelerating the vicious circle.

I can see Stalin pushing to the extreme limit and beyond in order to expel the Germans from Soviet territory, and if his generals and diplomats are any real good, he may well succeed, or come close enough to win the rest in negotiations, but if Germany fights smart, he can't go any real further.

The point about Valkurie is that the German Army was definitely not that capable of launching a coup against Hitler.

It was a matter of inches. Many of the Hitler assassinations attempts failed because of trivial butterflies that a somewhat better organization come have compensated. I can very easily see a more motivated Army covering the gap and killing him. With him gone, the Heer was by far the most powerful and organized body in the Nazi German state, they are not going to have that difficulties in seizing power from the remaining chaotic and infighting-prone Nazi hierarchy. Especially when all but the hardcore fanatics can see the point in saving the Fatherland from a nuclear deluge.

What makes a 20 Kt nuclear attack any worse than what happened to Hamburg?

The radically different sense of hopelessness that fighting a nuclear war without nukes gives. Something like Hamburg can be easily prevented if you make your anti-bomber defenses any really good (something that Germany could have easily reached with her jet fighter research had not been on her knees by the time. The PoD ensures it won’t). With a nuclear war, you need to make your anti-air defenses airtight, not even one enemy aircraft must go through, or it’s all over.

The Soviet Union took about four years even with reading all of the USA's Internal Communications. Throw in that Heisenberg either was incredibly sloppy or outright sabotaging the program and you have a clear reasoning why Germany couldn't get the bomb before 1950.

Well, I am basically agreeing with you about the times that it would take for Nazi Germany to develop the bomb once they realize in 1945 it can be done if America uses it against Japan first (a plausible outcome if anti-German fanatic Roosevelt is no more at the helm, and Japan looks like rather closer to the brink of defeat, as in this PoD). Probably not 1950, that’s too far, German technology was not so crappy and they had a nuclear program. Rather more like 1948-49. Since Heisenberg’s sloppiness or outright treason was only unwittingly tolerated since the supreme leadership made a very weak commitment to the success of the program, to them it was just one more zany wunderwaffe idea among many. If they ever get news of the mushroom blossoming over Hiroshima everything changes, it becomes A-1 national priority and no sloppiness or feet-dragging whatsoever shall be tolerated anymore. Incompetent members of the research team shall be fired, blatant obstructionists can say hello to the concentration camp, and possibly may be getting second thoughts now that their own nation, rather questionable leadership that it may have, would now be just the second one to have nukes, they would serve an obvious defense purpose for the Fatherland.

This is reasoning about a theoretical issue of course, since even 1948 is far too late to save Nazi Germany, to have nukes in time they would need a wholly different PoD, by 1948 the USA shall have enough nukes to defeat any plausible German air defense system. Germany would need a godlike stroke of luck like putting their hands on an intact nuke to reverse-engineer it (say an early American attempt to nuke them fails since the aircraft is downed, they recover a salvageable nuke from the wreck: unlikely but possible, there have been OTL nuclear accidents where the bomb case survived the airplane crash intact).

The problem with gassing English cities is that the UK can then respond with gas attacks against cities AND troop emplacements. Given the situation in the skies of Europe, adding in chemical weapons is going to screw Germany far worse than the English. See what happens when Defoilants start killing crops in Germany and Europe and when German Cities start receiving giant yellow clouds as visitors.
Germany can make the threat, but we also know that Churchill would have used chemical weapons on the invasion beaches if the UK was invaded. Clearly, Chemical Weapons, although horrifying, are not grounds to end the war. And their usage is liking to cause great harm to many Britons and mass death to millions of Germans. That is not MAD; in the case of Germany it's being forced to counter a new type of warfare they didn't supply for and cope with. Of course, once again, the USA is in no real danger of anything--and so it can make thousands of liters of chemical agents and turn Germany lime green. This is clearly a bad move for the Reich.

I’m not really rebuffing your point about the fact that nerve gas is an inadequate MAD substitute for the Bomb. I would only point out that British leadership might just be not so happy to have their own cities deluged with chemical-warhead missiles in order to let the USA nuke or do the same to German cities. I just have some doubts about the fanatical commitment of the British people and ruling elite to bring Hitler down, no matter the costs whatsoever to themselves. Repelling an invasion of the British Isles is one thing, conquering Fortress Europe another.

And I remind you, Zod, that Salerno means that Italy has tried to take itself out of the war--I would not want to be Italian in this scenario, as this probably means Hitler just decided that Venice is now a German city. The Italian community in the United States is suddenly turning very hawkish...

True, but in this PoD you might just have Sicily fail, not just Salerno, which might breathe some extra life in the Fascist regime.

I respect that a counterfactual failure at Salerno and Normandy would be very painful--but this would be happening at the same time as Leyte Gulf and the Liberation of the Phillipines, so its hardly like the US or UK could claim to be losing the war. Look at 1971 for an example of what a strong anti-war movement looks like, and Vietnam was a conflict that raged for over a decade. And Vietnam was a war the United States bungled into with no clear plan over a now discredited political theory.

This is all true, but again I am referring to the 1864 situation as an analogue of how the American (or more likely, the British) people might develop the wrong yet strong perception that a string of failed or inconclusive military engagements and apparent stalemate make a military victory unwinnable or not worth the cost, despite the righteousness of the cause. About Japan, they might come to the conclusion that the war *in Europe* is a costly failure, the one *in the Pacific* is coming along fine, so cut the one, finish the other.

One more point: Stalin is almost certainly going to wreck his war economy before negotiating for peace--he really doesn't have a darn clue how to run a country.

Yes, but wrecking Soviet war economy by drafting women when the male manpower pool is all but exhausted quickly and steadily wrecks the Red Army’s battlefield performance. He was paranoid, but once he shuffles some generals to the gulag to no benefit, and trying to redress the situation with more brutality only makes things worse, even he is going to realize that negotiating for peace is necessary. Again, he contemplated making peace with Hitler before IOTL, so it’s not unconceivable for him. If the Soviet generals perform decently, the Soviet war effort is going to enter a death spiral when pretty much all or most of the Soviet territory has been recovered, he can rightfully claimed to the Russian people and himself that he won the war by saving the Motherland and repelling the invaders. If the invader proved to be too tough to be vanquished and conquered in his own homeland or his vassals’ ones, too bad. Revered Comrade Lenin signed worse peace deals in order to save the Socialist Motherland. Conquering Germany or Eastern Europe is not really *necessary* to Stalin.

All in all, Germany could buy another year with this strategy and the Soviets could start really running out of steam. But all this would mean is the US Air Force demolishes Germany from the skies before moving in.

With the nukes, sure. With conventional bombing, not really. If Germany sees 1945 with a lot of steam still in her engines, and still the master of continental Europe, there are jet fighters coming along in her air forces, and Allied bombing is going to have some rather bad days.

A Downfall-Analogue 1946 D-Day in Europe is almost certainly going to succeed--Germany has no answers to nuclear weapons used against Troop Concentrations and that's going to be the start of the campaign that ends the war. Hopefully, the Wehrmacht gets lucky enough to kill Hitler before a 1947-8 overland offensive literally breaks' Germany's ability to fight through nuclear weapons.

Yes, a 1946-47 D-Day that forced through German troop concentrations by tactical nuclear bombing is going to win nonetheless. But why do you think the Americans are going to use the nukes so instead of just bombing a couple of German cities and asking for surrender ? Is it why the German anti-air defense system would be too good by then with jet fighters ?

Again, IMO the Generals kill Hitler as soon as the nukes are used against Germany. True, the German people gets the horror of having a couple cities obliterated ITTL. However, on the other hand, they are only occupied by the Anglo-Americans and by this time, Roosevelt is in the grave where he belongs and the Morgenthau genocidal racists and the Commie sympathizers and spies are out of favor or out of a job in the Administration. In all likelihood, they limit Germany’s territorial losses and ethnic cleansing to Sudetenland and Prussia at the worst. As a self-awowed Germanophile, I would daresay that letting a couple cities go Hiroshima may be worth it if Germany may come out of the war keeping national unity, a working Western economy, and Austria, Pomerania, and Silesia.
 
Interesting thread but what if after the Soviets and Germans concluded an armistice, the German Army and SS decide the war against the Western Allies must also end with the Germans basically withdrawing to their Pre 1940 borders. Hitler would of course have to be removed but what if he was exiled ala Napoleon and enough political changes were made to satisfy the western allies, would that have allowed for the Germans to have survived somewhat intact?
 
I ereally have to ask why everyone thinks the "backhand blow" strategy of the Germans would work. Like, what's the evidence for it?
 
Zod: we have departed farther and farther from the OP. Playing with the invasion of Sicily involves changing the actions of the Italian government; none of this has anything to do with the decision taken by the Wehrmacht and Hitler in 1943.

Back on topic:

While the Backhand blow can make the Soviets pay, I think they'd wise up to these tactics and not get beaten too badly.

Zod has an interesting idea, but I don't mean to hijack the thread with it.

At best, the Soviets lose another half million men and the Allies throw in a couple nukes against Germany.
 
I ereally have to ask why everyone thinks the "backhand blow" strategy of the Germans would work. Like, what's the evidence for it?

Not everybody believes that. Those who do, probably also believe Manstein's memoirs according to which, when he launched OTL's actual backhand blow, the Soviets outnumbered the Germans 6:1, and 8:1 on his own frontage. Those who do believe Manstein don't know, or prefer to ignore, that when Manstein wrote that, nobody could check; the Soviets were buttoned up, and the German records themselves, captured by the Western Allies, were still classified. Then, years after those shining memoirs, it turned out that both the Soviet and the German records provide slightly different numbers: 1.5:1 on the whole front and 2:1 in front of Manstein.
Make no mistake, the OTL backhand blow was a fine piece of work; doing that in 1:2 numerical inferiority is no small feat. Yet playing it up is not going to make that much of a difference.
 

General Zod

Banned
Zod: we have departed farther and farther from the OP. Playing with the invasion of Sicily involves changing the actions of the Italian government; none of this has anything to do with the decision taken by the Wehrmacht and Hitler in 1943.

Well, you are right in a strict sense. So I'm not going to press the topic and leave it for another thread. On a broader sense, if Hitler has a change of heart about grand strategy in 1943, and gives up static defense, depending on when exactly this occurs, this is likely to affect even the North Africa/Italian front, too. I don't believe the Fascist government in early 1943 has the clout to deny Hitler's strategic "suggestion".

While the Backhand blow can make the Soviets pay, I think they'd wise up to these tactics and not get beaten too badly.

Oh, they will... eventually. But since Soviet generals did not show any real aptitude to defend themselves against such tactics in 1942-43, IMO it is quite fair to assume they would fall squarely into the Backhand Blow and be beaten badly a couple time before they wise up. And after they do, the Wehrmacht can still continue to use elastic defense on a lesser scale, which minimizes their losses and maximizes Soviet ones for every inch of territory the Red Army manages to reconquest.

IMO, it is fair to assume the following kind of schedule:

Manstein's Backhand Blow is a complete success in Summer 1943. The whole southern wing of the Red Army is trapped against the Sea of Azov. The Soviets lose about 700,000-men and are thrown back beyond the Don.

The Soviets attack again in Fall 1943, the Germans use strategic elastic defense and encirclement again. It is a partial success, part of the attacking forces are trapped and encircled, but the Germans are forced to cede territory and fall back to the Donetz. Soviet forces suffer heavy losses again, about 500,000 men.

In Winter '43-'44, the Soviets presses on again with a general offensive throughout the Eastern Front. This time, they are able to defend themselves effectively against strategic encirclement, and the Soviet war production is nearing its peak, but the Germans use elastic defense on a tactic scale and minimize their losses. The Red Army manages to break the siege of Leningrad and reconquer Novgorod, Smolesk, Orel, Bryansk, Belgorod, and Kharkov, but they fail to accomplish any true strategic brekaout and continue to suffer rather heavy losses.

Spring '44 sees a renewed Soviet effort as their war effort reaches its peak. At the price of truly heinous losses, they manage to push the Wehrmacht back to the Dneiper, where they fortify. The Germans evacuate Crimea.

In Summer '44, they continue the offensive. The Red Army manages to establish some bridgeheads on and eventually to seize control of the left bank of the Dneiper, and reconquer Keive, Dnepropetrovsk, Vitebsk, but their losses continue to mount. A manpower shortage crisis is beginning to rear its ugly hand for the Soviets.

Fall '44 sees the peak and the onset of decline for the Soviet war effort. The Red Army recaptures Polotosk, Minsk, and Uman. The Wehrmacht fortiy on the Bug, the Pripet, and the Dvina. Manpower shortage is affecting the Red Army severely. Stalin, enraged about the news, orders to draft women, old men, and youngsters, against the suggestions of his counselors which dread the effects of the women drafts on the economy.

Mid-Late Fall '44: The Red Army stages its final offensive. It manages to reach and in several places psuh beyond the old 1939 borders of the USSR. However, after a couple months, the effects of the expanded draft are beginning to bite the Soviet war effort in the rear: war production begins a steady decline, ammunitions, spare parts, medicines go into shortage, logistics are increasingly disorganized. Women draftees fight effectively, but conscripted old men and youngsters fare poorly against seasoned German veterans. The Wehrmacht manages some effective counteroffensives and pushes the Red Army somewhat beyond the 1939 borders. Stalin is livid with fury, but sending several generals to the gulags provides no relief as the military situation continues to worsen. Eventually he swallows the bitter pill and asks for peace negotiations. The Soviets initially claim the 1941 borders, while the Germans asks to bring them to the Dneiper. Eventually a compromise is reached to reestablish the 1939 borders. The end of 1944 sees a peace treaty between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
 

General Zod

Banned
You mean, when they won loads of battles.

No, when the Germans counteroffensives surprised them and crushed them in the Second and Third Battle of Kharkov.

I guess my objection to this is Operation Bagration.

Bagration would not have been nowhere as successful for the Soviets and even more important, nowhere as crippling for the Germans if they had not been committed to static defense to an insane degree, and already greately weakened by previous lost battles where they had used the same losing tactic, as well as by the costly failure of Zitadelle.

Anyway, in the TL I envisage, the Soviet peak effort that IOTL was Operation Bagration still occurs, and manages to win them substantial territory (the Red Army reconquers half of Belarus and Eastern Ukraine), but since Germans use smart tactics, they avoid the crippling losses of Bagration and the Soviets pay an heinous butcher bill for their gains.

ITTL, Soviet war effort is still a definite success in a defensive sense, since it manages to repel Germans attempt to conquest and expel the Wehrmacht from Soviet soil. However, the effort exausts Russian resources, so they fail to conquer Axis countries.
 
No, when the Germans counteroffensives surprised them and crushed them in the Second and Third Battle of Kharkov.

Crushed them so badly the Soviets drove them out of the Ukraine a couple of months later:rolleyes:. Classic naziwank here btw, the use of overdone cliched adjectives like "crushed."

They won a battle against a much overextended opponent. Who then regrouped and counter attacked decisively within weeks.

Bagration would not have been nowhere as successful for the Soviets and even more important, nowhere as crippling for the Germans if they had not been committed to static defense to an insane degree, and already greately weakened by previous lost battles where they had used the same losing tactic, as well as by the costly failure of Zitadelle.

Anyway, in the TL I envisage, the Soviet peak effort that IOTL was Operation Bagration still occurs, and manages to win them substantial territory (the Red Army reconquers half of Belarus and Eastern Ukraine), but since Germans use smart tactics, they avoid the crippling losses of Bagration and the Soviets pay an heinous butcher bill for their gains.

ITTL, Soviet war effort is still a definite success in a defensive sense, since it manages to repel Germans attempt to conquest and expel the Wehrmacht from Soviet soil. However, the effort exausts Russian resources, so they fail to conquer Axis countries.

This really misunderstands what has actually happened to the two war machines over the preceeding two years. The Germans have been systematically hollowed out, short of replacements, short of equipment and with increasingly underequipped formations outside key areas. If the Germans try to be "flexible" during Bagration they will be a rabble wandering through the wilderness because they LACK MOBILITY.
 

General Zod

Banned
Crushed them so badly the Soviets drove them out of the Ukraine a couple of months later:rolleyes:.

After the Second Battle of Kharkov, they drove them in... to the Volga and Caucasus, rather. :rolleyes: After the Third Battle of Kharkov, they indeed drove them out of half of Ukraine... after the Germans had exausted themselves with Zitadelle. :eek:

Classic naziwank here btw, the use of overdone cliched adjectives like "crushed."

If you really must cliche it as wank, rather Germanwank, or Anti-Commie/Russkiewank, please. And my love for dramatic figures of speech.

They won a battle against a much overextended opponent. Who then regrouped and counter attacked decisively within weeks.

Funny, those immediate counter-counteroffensives have managed to disappear from history books. :rolleyes: In real world, the Soviets took half a year, to recover the offensive after those battles.

This really misunderstands what has actually happened to the two war machines over the preceeding two years. The Germans have been systematically hollowed out, short of replacements, short of equipment and with increasingly underequipped formations outside key areas. If the Germans try to be "flexible" during Bagration they will be a rabble wandering through the wilderness because they LACK MOBILITY.

The PoD minimizes such German losses throughout 1943 and early '44, therefore they arrive to Summer 1944 nowhere as hollowed out in men and equipment.
 
Not at all ASB

This doesn't at all look ASB. The POD is unlikely but possible. The only other part I'm dubious about is the Sovs running out of manpower. I think a more likely outcome is that the Germans and the Russians keep grinding it out on the East without any serious real advances for either side. Would this keep the West weak enough to be invaded? Probably not.

The rapid loss of public confidence in the war isn't a sure thing but after a couple of hideously bloody fiascos on the Sicilian and the French beaches its not at all unlikely. The American public, especially, was never all that committed to fighting the Germans they way they were to fighting the Japanese.

An actual peace between the Allies and Germany (or between the Sovs and Germany) is unlikely as long as Hitler lives, and the reason is obvious: you can't trust him.
 
Not everybody believes that. Those who do, probably also believe Manstein's memoirs according to which, when he launched OTL's actual backhand blow, the Soviets outnumbered the Germans 6:1, and 8:1 on his own frontage. Those who do believe Manstein don't know, or prefer to ignore, that when Manstein wrote that, nobody could check; the Soviets were buttoned up, and the German records themselves, captured by the Western Allies, were still classified. Then, years after those shining memoirs, it turned out that both the Soviet and the German records provide slightly different numbers: 1.5:1 on the whole front and 2:1 in front of Manstein.
Make no mistake, the OTL backhand blow was a fine piece of work; doing that in 1:2 numerical inferiority is no small feat. Yet playing it up is not going to make that much of a difference.
You are talking about the backhandblow early 1943, I am talking of the superbackhandblow proposed by Von Manstein in the summer of 1943.
basically Armygroup south is to absorb the Soviet offensive inflicting losses and then falling back, 4th panzerarmee is held in reserve close to Dnepr and when the Russian offensive has lost its momentum advance and envelop and crush the Sovjet southern armies against the Black Sea.
 
You are talking about the backhandblow early 1943, I am talking of the superbackhandblow proposed by Von Manstein in the summer of 1943.
basically Armygroup south is to absorb the Soviet offensive inflicting losses and then falling back, 4th panzerarmee is held in reserve close to Dnepr and when the Russian offensive has lost its momentum advance and envelop and crush the Sovjet southern armies against the Black Sea.

That is right, I'm thinking about the _reality_ of the real operation - as opposed to self-flattering memoirs - and using it to assess the credibility of the alternative proposal.
 
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