alternatehistory.com

From John Wingate’s ‘Frigate’, ‘Carrier’ and ‘Submarine’ trilogy

‘Assuming the superpowers were compelled to fight, even at the expense of destroying civilisation on this planet, the outcome of the land battle on the central plains of Europe would depend on whether the armies of the West could be reinforced from the American arsenal on the other side of the Atlantic.

If the Soviets were to win the Atlantic, by denying the sea-lanes to NATO reinforcements, it would be pointless for NATO to resist on the central plains. But if NATO won the Atlantic, it would be illogical for Russia to invade Europe because she would, in the end, be overwhelmed as the American reinforcements began rolling into the European ports.

The corollary was brutal: whichever side won this Battle of the Atlantic, Europe would be spared the holocaust of land warfare, a condition that the superpowers preferred: a devastated continent was a liability to both contestants, whoever nominally won.’


There is land fighting in Norway as the Soviet Union seeks to cover its naval forces moving out into the Atlantic (but doesn’t go for Iceland…….) and the Bulgarians move towards Greece and Turkey but apart from that, the fighting is confined to the convoy battles plus some cruise missile attacks on dockyards in the UK and the US while the land forces glare at each other across the German border.

What would have been the chances of this kind of scenario, I can’t see the SU giving the US time to get reinforcements across.
Top