Hey all, I've been a bit distracted the last few days, and I'm probably going to spend much of the break on other things. The next update is going to be a short bit on the first battle in Germany. On to the comments.
Since they've been brought up. It needs to be said that Spain and Turkey’s armed forces are a mess, so any contest between them and the Soviets would be a mismatch without NATO support of course any NATO moves to supply or reinforce Turkey would lead to an invasion. One from Bulgaria to secure Istanbul and close the Black Sea to NATO shipping and another into Anatolia. Whatever else they do, the Soviets are most certainly not going to allow the Turks to give passage to NATO ships into the Black Sea.
I figured as much, but the real question now becomes how well the actual invasion of Turkey would go down. Greece has a few divisions to deploy which will be able to assist in the defense of Istanbul (funny thought, that!) or to threaten Soviet supply lines in Bulgaria, and I don't think anyone would look forward to fighting an offensive war in Anatolia, particularly a mechanized one such as the Soviets are geared for.
In response to the map Mongolia is Soviet aligned (part of the U.S.S.R, in all but name really) as is Albania, as for the European colonies. I don’t expect them to offer much in the way of assistance. In fact quite a few notably Indochina are already in a state of outright revolt. I see Tito jumping in against Italy if the Soviets make the right promises, look like they’re winning and apologize for the little spat in 1948, Stalin isn’t one to let his pride get in the way of his short term goals. If the matter is important enough and I submit WW3 falls under that category..
Interesting points on Yugoslavia - I expect you're right and Tito will probably join up against NATO. As for the colonies, my main idea was to convey that those areas remain open for Allied resource exploitation, and show why Stalin has the perspective that NATO needs to be broken up - it looks like most of the world's against him. The map's been edited to put Albania and Mongolia into the Soviet sphere.
I doubt if many of the colonies will be that significant but I suspect few would be looking to move from frying pan to fire. With Chinese forces advancing southwards I could see locals outside Vietnam [along with possibly some inside that country] being very nervous about being under either Chinese or communist domination let alone both.
Agreed. The colonies provide an interesting additional facet to the war, especially Indochina.
I suppose it would be a little much if NATO assumed the OTL command divisions; AFNORTH, AFCENT, NORTHAG, BALTAP, etc...
I'm guessing Sweden will stay out of things until its neutrality is violated by one side or the other... which is more or less bound to happen eventually.
Probably correct on both counts. Keep in mind that the later command divisions weren't established until 1952 or so, so this is a quickly-formed chain of command in response in keeping with the MTDP to minimize the confusion.
If the Soviets are truly willing to start WWIII in 6/50, they have (at most) about a half-dozen nukes to work with, and no reliable delivery system against any sort of organized opposition. Perhaps it might not be a bad idea to use them as part of the opening attack?
I considered this option, but dropped it for a couple of reasons. First, attacking American cities with nuclear weapons invites the US to retaliate with overwhelming force. I figure Stalin will be banking on the threat of his nukes acting as a deterrent, as well as thinking he can force the Allies to the negotiating table before the nukes come into play fully. Attacking NATO with nuclear weapons escalates the conflict early, taking it beyond the conventional theater where Stalin knows he is at a disadvantage. Better to keep his half-dozen or so nukes as a threat hanging over Western Europe than immediately spend them for a tactical gain which may not be necessary and will leave him with no ability to retaliate if the US decides to use their own atomics on him.
Of course, this doesn't mean that submarines with nuclear weapons won't become a factor later in the timeline. Another thing to think about is how fast both sides can create nuclear weapons in wartime. This will probably be a factor later in the war (sabotage of ports in the Belgian Congo, perhaps?).
I am sure that chemical warfare has already been analyzed to death here, but the obvious place for it would be on NATO (my shorthand for the non-Soviets) tactical airfields and naval ports (the latter at about D+15 or so, when the ports are actually filled with military cargos) rather than against frontline troops that may have some equipment and training to cope with it.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I was figuring. It
is what the Soviets settled on for chemical warfare doctrine later in OTL, precisely because it causes maximum damage to the enemy without risking too many of their own troops.
I did notice some discussion of the MiG-15. Remember that this was a fairly short-legged interceptor heavily dependent upon ground control, and thus not particularly useful without either a fairly compact theatre of operations (such as Korea) or a well-developed, well-integrated air defence environment, which the Soviets did not have in 1950. Certainly they had radar and some air defence centers worthy of the name, but the sheer size of the Soviet Union (and its various satellites), as well as the limited technical resources of the Red Army meant that air defence in 1950 was still pretty much a point-defence operation, something that the MiG-15 was quite good at. If the Americans began using nukes against Soviet military targets (large military depots, troop concentrations, ports, etc.), and did so with a modicum of cleverness in execution (they had good practice at this during WWII, and here they could do so with far smaller - hence more flexible - forces), it is unlikely that the Soviets could do much about it. Soviet tactical air would be a different matter, however, but you don't need MiG-15s for that...
The thing I need to investigate is how many MiG-15s were actually in service at the time, but I expect there were enough to allow for the point defense of Soviet cities while also permitting the deployment of a few squadrons in Germany with 24th Air Army. They're mostly going to be deployed in a defensive role, but their advantage in an offensive role is that they're better than any NATO fighter besides the F-86. And Europe, along with North America,
is one of the two places that the F-86 has been deployed to in large numbers. So use of MiG-15s in an air superiority role has the logic of providing a counter to the best fighter NATO has as well as being significantly better than anything else NATO can call on. As you said, range is a preeminent problem, and the Soviets will probably lose the ability to operate MiG-15s in large numbers beyond about the Rhine. In fact, the Rhine may also represent one of the further lines of operation for NATO forces as well - it'll probably become a Yalu analogue for the timeline. The MiGs are mainly being deployed in the early offensive phase in an effort to secure air superiority as much as possible. The piston-engined, longer-range planes will carry the burden once the armies get outside Germany, and at that point the MiGs can return to the USSR to stave off the bombers. That's my logic, anyway, and the numbers appear to back me up, though neither side knows this in the timeline - about two weeks both to get to the Rhine and for the strategic air offensive to begin.
Since we aren't engaging in the silliness of the 1946 timeline I have seen elsewhere here, I assume that realistic issues of logistics for the Red Army will be incorporated into the scenario, which suggests that things won't end well for the Soviets, though it will be a long and ugly fight. I am curious though...how aggressively do you intend to use 5th columnists? A few well-planned assassinations and perhaps some prewar scandals/general strikes/etc. might prepare the battlefield nicely....
I expect that the fifth columns and spies will play a large role on both sides. One of the things that the 1946 timeline correctly notes but at the same time seems to seriously overestimate is the role the Soviet spies play. Nevertheless, they are there and will begin taking an active role in the story as time goes on. High-scale assassinations are doubtful, but considering the large Communist parties in Western Europe especially, general strikes and attempts to influence public opinion will be likely courses of action with a decent potential for success - with some interesting implications for freedom of speech and social issues in those countries afterward.
And of course the CIA and other NATO intelligence services, once they get moving, will be making hay in the Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe and the Baltic/Ukrainian SSRs, where discontent and outright resistance to the Soviet regime will allow the West to complicate matters for the Soviets.