Germans take and hold Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov in 1941., what do the Soviets do?

[Cryhavoc101]

The German Logisticians had warned that Moscow was too far and that the German army would not be able to logistical support the attack.

In my opinion the Germans were helped by some tragic mistakes by the Russians so its hard for me to see them doing much better and if anything if they did take moscow being even more over extended when the 'Siberian' divisions counter attack unless as infernus suggested above Stalins death cripples the Soviet leadership.

 

[JSchafer]

If Soviets don’t lose the Caucasus it changes nothing. Without Oil Germany is bound to lose

 

[Dave Shoup]

Lets assume that for whatever reason, either better Axis performance, poorer Soviet performance or dumb luck, the Germans manage to take and hold the targeted Leningrad-Moscow-Rostov line during Barbarossa. What do the Soviets do next?

As others have said, it depends on what has changed from history to allow these three "extra" victories (or two, if one counts Rostov that way). Depending on how far back THAT POD goes, it will make a difference in how the Soviets react.

After that, the reality is even of the Germans capture the three cities, the USSR in 1941 is not going to collapse because the Germans are in the Kremlin, any more than the Russian Empire collapsed in 1814 because the French were there.

The Soviets can - and will - withdraw, trading space for time, to the east, and they have both a) winter on their side, and b) multiple river lines, including the Don and Volga to fall back on, and c) they continue to control the Caucausus and Caspian Sea oilfields, plus the resources of eastern Russia, west of the Urals, as well as all of Transcaucasia and Central Asia, much less Soviet Asia and the Soviet Far East. The Soviets also had secure - albeit lengthy - supply lines to the West via the Persian Corridor (the Iranians had surrendered in September), as well as the advantages of the winter on the North Russia Run. Lend Lease had been extended to the USSR in October, so the North Pacific Route was available as well. Kuibyshev would have functioned as the emergency capital. Stalin's position is an interesting one; I doubt he would die in his bunker in Moscow; the man had gained and held the position he held historically for a reason, and it was not because he could not calculate odds, or had a desire to die gloriously.

All else being equal, the Germans are still - presumably - in a position to launch an offensive on the scale of the 1942 summer offensive, but the basic strategic reality remains the same - every mile farther east the Germans go, the front widens and gets even farther away from the Ruhr. Odds are still strongly against the Axis being able to force a Soviet surrender.

 

[liqmadiqkhan]

The Germans still lose, and they lose badly. Logistics will continue to be hell what with 95% of the USSR's roads being dirt or gravel, partisans in their rear attacking rail lines, etc. Red Army will have a smaller pool of manpower to pull from, but they still win the war around 45 or 46 in my approximation. Soviets still have oil and room to trade for time. They can also supply armies in the Caucasus even if the Wehrmacht reaches the Caspian Sea (which is ASB anyway) by virtue of the Allied occupation of Iran. Wouldn't be as pretty a performance, but they'd get the job done.

 

[marathag]

Not quite so soon. The estimate was done without foreknowledge of the reactor problems that started kicking in during the Fall of ‘45 that forced reconstruction. Now with mobilization and a continued war, there’ll undoubtedly be much more urgency, rapidity, and resources tossed at the problem to fix them, but the targeted rate of one nuke every week probably won’t be reached for until deep into ‘46 or early-‘47. That’s just kicking the nuke can down the road though.

As soon as the poisoning problem is discovered, the push for the Oralloy, aka Oak Ridge Alloy, U-235 will be used for implosion devices.

Operation Sandstone - 1948
Although a series of improvements for the implosion bomb were envisioned and under development at Los Alamos even before Trinity, the first nuclear test, the end of the war had derailed these efforts. With the Cold War rapidly developing, an urgent need was felt to bring these improvements to the U.S. weapon stockpile.

On 27 June 1947 President Harry Truman authorized a new test series for weapons development for the following year. Operation Sandstone was conducted at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1948 to test the first new weapon designs since World War II. The massive operation involved 10,200 personnel.


Up until this time, all four implosion bombs that had been exploded (the Trinity Gadget, the Fat Man bomb used on Nagasaki, and the two bombs used during Operation Crossroads ) had all been identical, based on a conservative wartime design. The Sandstone test series intoduced a second generation of weapon design by evaluating several new design principles. In addition a number of design parameters were varied to evaluate their effects on performance.

The original Fat Man pit design used a Christy solid plutonium core, surrounded by a close fitting natural uranium tamper. The Sandstone devices all replaced the contiguous tamper-core approach with a "levitated core" in which the core was suspended within a larger hollow space within the tamper so that a gap existed between them. The collision between the tamper and core would create more efficient compression of the core than the explosive-driven shock in the watime design. They apparently retained a solid core however.

These devices also abandoned the use of a pure plutonium core since oralloy (uranium hihgly enriched in U-235) production exceeded plutonium production by a factor of over 3-to-1. The first test, X-Ray, used a composite oralloy-plutonium core. Both Yoke and Zebra used an all oralloy core. The pits (tamper plus core) for all three devices weighed about the same.

Other tested features included:

• varying the tamper thickness (which had been fixed at 7 cm in earlier devices)
• varying the amount of fissile material in the core
• the effect of using a "minimum strength" polonium-beryllium Urchin neutron initiator.

Previously, Urchins containing the full load of 50 curies of Po-210 had been used in tested bombs. Guidelines permitted the use of initiators with as little as 12 curies, but the adequacy of these had never been put to an actual test. Given the very short 138.4 day half life of Po-210, this was an important question for maintaining a ready stockpile.

Although the Sandstone tests continued to use the Mk 3 implosion system, they proof tested components that led to the fielding of the Mk 4 bomb. The Mk 3 bomb used for the Sandstone devices was 60 inches in diameter and weighed 10,500 lb total; the explosive, core and firing system weighed 7,600 lb.

Both the principle of levitation and the use of oralloy-plutonium composite cores had been under development at Los Alamos during the war. If it had continued into the fall of 1945, both of these innovations would have been introduced to increase the size and efficiency of the stockpile. Now, the confrontation with the Soviet Union impelled the inclusion of these innovations in deployed weapons. The results of Sandstone led to the immediate stockpiling of both X-Ray and Zebra core designs, replacing all other designs. Taken together, this lead to an immediate increase in total stockpile yield of 75%.

 

[James Ricker]

The germans took Rostov OTL without a "Stalingrad", the only change necessary if for them to hold against a counter-attack.
Also, I don't see how the hell the german leningrad forces are going to be trapped in a pocket inside the city, aka "stalingrad"


They needed two to retake Rostov in OTL. Why does losing Moscow and Leningrad make them suddenly stronger? And how will a considerably weaker 1942 USSR retake the cities when in OTL 1942 they generally lost a lot of ground instead of retaking any?

Losing Moscow and Leningrad wouldn't make the Russian stronger it would make them weaker but the Germans would also lose a lot of men taking those cities. Germany would find itself running out of Infantry about 6 months earlier than it did in our timeline.

 

[thaddeus]

If the Germans have successfully taken and held all three cities through the winter of 1941/42, that means something earlier has happened which has weakened the Red Army and/or the Soviet Union as a whole for it to happen. So it would be the consequence of the consequence of an earlier PoD. The important weakening of the USSR wouldn't therefore necessarily be the fall of the three cities, but whatever permitted the conditions for which the three cities to fall in the first place. That in mind, the likely ultimate consequence is that winning or losing the war comes down to the Americans.

got a POD?

my speculation is always that KM could have waged a more robust and/or effective campaign in the Baltic and Black Seas, that by eliminating the Soviet fleets they could have flooded MFPs/AFPs into both and improved their transportation system. but that only helps Leningrad and Rostov.

 

[GlobalHumanism]

IIRC the entire purpose of Barbarossa wasn't even securing resources, capturing territory to the the A-A Line, or anything like that but rather annihilating the Red Army as an effective fighting force in 1941. Once the likelihood of that became apparent (I think by fall '41) the war was simply lost. So even with those three cities taken, if the Red Army continues to fight on, Germany still loses by sheer manpower and resource attrition.

 

[mattep74]

The plan for Leningrad was to blow the city if it fell to Germany. So it will be of no use for Germany. Also, we will see the remains of the Soviet Baltic fleet doing a death ride to get to UK

 

[fockewulf]

To achieve this kind of succes, the German high command must realize the importance of logistics and act accordingly. Then stop the formation of countless new divisions, just for propaganda purpose, instead of replenishing the veteran formations. The new guys could learn from the veterans and so have a better chance of survival. It will help a lot if there is no BOB to cripple the Luftwaffe and throw away fuel for nothing. With more planes and better supply lines it might be possible to keep the Soviet outbalanced enough so they can't create coherent defensive lines to defend Moscow and Leningrad. With those out of commission the SU loses it's main transport hub and significant industrial capacity. The Japanese might see this as a sign of imminent colapse and invade, taking Vladivostok and whatever wasteland they see fit, but more importantly, cutting the trans Siberian rail.
After this I have no idea what the soviets would or could do. Maybe some more purges, or Stalin gets purged himself, or maybe kills himself. Or they could just cary on indefinitely, but their offensive capabilities would be reduced significantly.

 

[Michele]

The plan for Leningrad was to blow the city if it fell to Germany. So it will be of no use for Germany. Also, we will see the remains of the Soviet Baltic fleet doing a death ride to get to UK

The point is making it not usable for the Soviets and stopping having to besiege it.
The Baltic fleet is toast - look at the escape route. Death is the key word there.

---

That said, many of the posts above raise good points, but there are some aspects that may well jeopardize the Soviet chances.
- Soviet logistics revolved around Moscow.
- It's not just a matter of the casualties incurred in arriving at this situation. There's also the loss of the most significant population (and therefore future drafting) regions.
- Personally I don't believe in the theory of a political collapse caused by the loss of Moscow. But the case can be made, and here the Soviet lose the second city too.

 

[thaddeus]

That said, many of the posts above raise good points, but there are some aspects that may well jeopardize the Soviet chances.
- Soviet logistics revolved around Moscow.
- It's not just a matter of the casualties incurred in arriving at this situation. There's also the loss of the most significant population (and therefore future drafting) regions.
- Personally I don't believe in the theory of a political collapse caused by the loss of Moscow. But the case can be made, and here the Soviet lose the second city too.

understand the OP is for a capture and holding of Moscow, but the most feasible scenario (especially under this timeframe) might be a proto-Iron Hammer operation? under which the cascade of dams would be damaged or destroyed, the auteur of that plan advocated for attacks on Rybinsk, Uglich, and Dubna dams irrespective of the hydroelectric plants -- in other words to flood the area.

of course to execute such an operation would require deciding between destruction and capture/exploitation, which they never actually did historically?

 

[Sam R.]

The Germans can kill as many slavs as they want

No. They can’t. In this suggested situation millions of more soviet pows are starved, but the einsatzbattalion still collapse under suicide: shooting things you believe to be not people, but which your mind tells you are people, causes excess suicide even amongst true believers.

1942 will see continued war, and the attempts to make industrial camps for the slaughter of civilians will fail, as historically, due to slave worker revolts / strike action.

This will leave a failed pogrom strategy, a difficult to implement mass death by starvation strategy and a camp strategy. With Jews being a higher priority for the limited camp system the Germans (and their allies) will not be able to kill as many soviet citizens as they want.

Maybe 50% over historical though if it has the same priority as historical.

 

[Michel Van]

Third Reich Attack the USSR with 3 million soldiers
under this scenario the USSR will trow there entire Reserve into battle
mean 3 million Wehrmacht solders will face around 12 million soviet soldiers
and German forces are stretch thin at long frontline...

 

[Michele]

Third Reich Attack the USSR with 3 million soldiers
under this scenario the USSR will trow there entire Reserve into battle
mean 3 million Wehrmacht solders will face around 12 million soviet soldiers
and German forces are stretch thin at long frontline...

So in OTL the Soviets could field 12 million troops from the get go, but they didn't because things were already going jolly well for them? They kept a few millions in reserve just to give the Germans a fair chance, because Stalin was a sporty kind of guy?

 

[The Gunslinger]

If Leningrad and Moscow both fall that's probably it for the USSR. Without the administrative nerve center and rail hub of Moscow any new offensive is going to be that much more fraught with difficulty than OTL while the Germans just freed up the Baltic to naval traffic and an easing of supply bottlenecks. It probably takes another two years but the Soviets will be spent force by 1943.