Less Successful WW2 for Germany...

edtorockio

Banned
Weird title right, considering they lost. I haven't seen this yet, nor could I find this in a search. But under what reasonable conditions could Russia have been more successful in their initial defense against Germany, leading to a timeline where the Soviets ended the war against Germany with a drive on Paris sometime in early 1944? Leading ultimately to a Cold War where all but Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal are behind the Iron Curtain. Or perhaps an East and West divided France and an East and West Paris following an early Normandy Invasion just to prevent the Soviets from taking all of France.

Is this possible? Would the Allies have made a separate peace with Hitler so as to prevent a totally Red Europe? If so would Stalin have driven the Allies into the sea? Or is 1944 too early for the Russians to make it to Paris entirely?

Would it have been possible for Russia to win even earlier, say mid 1943? What would that have done to the situation in North Africa with thousands of stranded Germans and Italians surrounded by the Americans and British.
 
Not a chance

Is this possible? Would the Allies have made a separate peace with Hitler so as to prevent a totally Red Europe?

I can not think of any circumstance that the UK would have made peace with Hitler as long as Churchill was PM.
 
Weird title right, considering they lost. I haven't seen this yet, nor could I find this in a search. But under what reasonable conditions could Russia have been more successful in their initial defense against Germany, leading to a timeline where the Soviets ended the war against Germany with a drive on Paris sometime in early 1944? Leading ultimately to a Cold War where all but Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal are behind the Iron Curtain. Or perhaps an East and West divided France and an East and West Paris following an early Normandy Invasion just to prevent the Soviets from taking all of France.

Is this possible? Would the Allies have made a separate peace with Hitler so as to prevent a totally Red Europe? If so would Stalin have driven the Allies into the sea? Or is 1944 too early for the Russians to make it to Paris entirely?

Would it have been possible for Russia to win even earlier, say mid 1943? What would that have done to the situation in North Africa with thousands of stranded Germans and Italians surrounded by the Americans and British.

Logistically, I don't think Russia has a chance to take over all of Europe in 1943. I don't even think they can beat Germany unless Germany gets bogged down in France, in which case, there's no worry of Russian domination over Europe anyway.
 
As I understand it, the Soviet army was caught totally out of position. Had they a better deployment, and anti mobile warfare doctrine, Barbarossa might have been a lot tougher than it was.
 
The 1939 Soviet-Polish border had a decent lot of fortifications knowwn as the Stalin Line. After the Soviet invasion of the eastern half of Poland huge numbers of Soviet forces were moved west of thhe Stalin Line into Poland. When the Germans attacked they were able to encircle huge Soviet forces with foot infantry because of their proximity to the border. In addition the German tanks were given auxiliary fuel tanks so their initial advance could go at least 50% further before an operational pause, which allowed the great panzer encirclements. The precondition for these panzer encirclments was the gripping of the Soviet forces by the foot infantry, so they could be penetrated by the panzers.

So for a more successful Soviet WW2 don't cram huge armies into occupied Poland, occupy Poland with a little force as possible. That way the Germans would have to cross several hundred km of occupied Poland and then assault the Stalin Line before conducting any major encirclements. Simply driving across occupied Poland would take a couple of days for panzers which would then be totally unsupported by the over 100 infantry divisions, which would take a week or more to cross that distance. That would give the Soviets time to mobilise, organise and recover from the surprise of thhe invasion without the instant loss of such huge forces.
 

Perkeo

Banned
The Sowjets were warned on time by the British, but failed to take it seriously. Wi they had done so, plus Stalin not executinng quite as many competent officers before WWII as IOTL?
 
If the Soviets had been better prepared for Barbarossa, the Germans would be in such deep **** that they wouldn't be able to resist an Allied invasion in the west so effectively. Also, the fear of a Soviet takeover of Europe would have spurred Britain and the U.S. to prepare an invasion much more quickly, perhaps foregoing the operations in Sicily and Italy and perhaps even putting some operations in the Pacific on hold, like MacArthur's ego driven campaign. Maybe more resources into the Manhattan Project so Germany is taken out before the Soviets can move too far west. There are just too many things the western Allies could have done to foil the Soviets, and that's assuming that the cautious Stalin would have presumed to try to occupy Western Europe in the first place. For in this time line his own country would have taken a heavy beating (although not as heavy at OTL) and he wouldn't have wanted World War III immediately on top of World War II.
 
Weird title right, considering they lost. I haven't seen this yet, nor could I find this in a search. But under what reasonable conditions could Russia have been more successful in their initial defense against Germany, leading to a timeline where the Soviets ended the war against Germany with a drive on Paris sometime in early 1944? Leading ultimately to a Cold War where all but Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal are behind the Iron Curtain. Or perhaps an East and West divided France and an East and West Paris following an early Normandy Invasion just to prevent the Soviets from taking all of France.

Is this possible? Would the Allies have made a separate peace with Hitler so as to prevent a totally Red Europe? If so would Stalin have driven the Allies into the sea? Or is 1944 too early for the Russians to make it to Paris entirely?

Would it have been possible for Russia to win even earlier, say mid 1943? What would that have done to the situation in North Africa with thousands of stranded Germans and Italians surrounded by the Americans and British.

If britain makes a seperate peace with them early, then there is very little chance lendlease to russia will happen as otl. after a few more soviet wins you might even get a red scare amongst the allies.

Without lendlease the russian do not have the resources to fight an all out offensive war against the germans. it would be a prolonged stalemate which probably would end with some negotiated peace after both sides experienced massive losses.
 
The USSR goes to war with Japan in 1939. Japan's victory disease and its expansionist goals curbed. The USSR works out some of the kinks in its Deep Battle doctrine in the process, Stalin's purges end sooner, and basically the changes the Winter War forced are moved ahead one year. The defeat of Japan frightens the Nazis, the opposite result of the Winter War OTL. Hitler demands a strike in late 1940 to nip the threat of the Soviets in the bud. But a few butterflies mean Stalin believes warnings from his spies. Barbarossa '40 turns out to be a disaster. The Red Army has been reformed and is dug in for the attack. The Germans are worn out from their campaigns in the West. The Germans have fewer months before the Russian winter arrives. 1941 sees reversals of the initial, limited German success and a push into Axis territory. The United States stays isolationist because Japan is in no position to launch Pearl Harbor. In 1942, von Stauffenberg or some other disgruntled officer assassinates Hitler. A civil war breaks out and German resistance collapses. The Red Army rolls through Germany while the British launch a Operation Sledgehammer-esque invasion of France. Not having been bled dry and without the threat of the United States, the USSR drives the British off the continent. They install sympathetic Communist resistance groups as the rulers of formerly Nazi-occupied/aligned countries, force Turkey to hand over control of the the Straights, and depose the fascists in Spain and Portugal.
 

edtorockio

Banned
Ok so for a Red Europe in 1944 we have the following butterflies:

1. Russia doesnt heavily occupy Poland, the bulk of their forces stay on the Stalin line.
2. Stalin doesnt go berzerk and bleed the officers of the Red Army dry
3. Stalin listens to his spies.
4. Possible short war with Japan for control of Manchuria which allows the Red Army to work out the bugs in its strategies and tactics. This one sounds like a stretch... Wouldnt the Germans just use this as a sign to attack while the Red are occupied on another front, Ready or Not? Or Worse could this not have depleted their reserve manpower which they will need when the Germans do attack? Besides didnt the Russians fight an unofficial war with Japan in OTL about a year or so before Barbarossa that ended in stalemate?

One I havent heard yet, I have read that it was possible the Russians were preparing to attack Germany first. What if they did while Germany was busy cleaning up Yugoslavia and Greece?
 
Ok so for a Red Europe in 1944 we have the following butterflies:

1. Russia doesnt heavily occupy Poland, the bulk of their forces stay on the Stalin line.
2. Stalin doesnt go berzerk and bleed the officers of the Red Army dry
3. Stalin listens to his spies.
4. Possible short war with Japan for control of Manchuria which allows the Red Army to work out the bugs in its strategies and tactics. This one sounds like a stretch... Wouldnt the Germans just use this as a sign to attack while the Red are occupied on another front, Ready or Not? Or Worse could this not have depleted their reserve manpower which they will need when the Germans do attack? Besides didnt the Russians fight an unofficial war with Japan in OTL about a year or so before Barbarossa that ended in stalemate?

One I havent heard yet, I have read that it was possible the Russians were preparing to attack Germany first. What if they did while Germany was busy cleaning up Yugoslavia and Greece?

The Battles of Khalkhin Gol are apparently what you're thinking of, and what I'd base the ATL Second Russo-Japanese War off of. It was not a stalemate, it was a limited border conflict in which the Russians won decisively. They chose not to initiate a larger conflict for various legitimate reasons, but it's plausible for leaders to change their minds. It would provide no opportunities for Nazi Germany because they are fighting Poland, France and Britain in the timeframe of this war, and they are not interested in initiating a two-fronted war. The vast majority of the officer purges would still take place, I'm just suggesting their intensity would slow sooner, due to the war with Japan. Wikipedia tells me they were being wrapped up by November 1939 anyway, so on second thought there's not much room for Soviet improvement there.
 
Weird title right, considering they lost. I haven't seen this yet, nor could I find this in a search. But under what reasonable conditions could Russia have been more successful in their initial defense against Germany...

Stalin does not persuade himself that a) Hitler won't attack and b) any evidence presented that a) is not true is all lies to get him embroiled with Germany.

Stalin became obsessed with the latter idea, and bent over backwards to avoid anything that could accidentally provoke a German-Soviet war.

Take that away and the USSR does much better in 1941. OTL the Soviet army was - by Stalin's orders - completely unready for action. The opening days and hours were catastrophic, and after the resulting losses the surviving Soviet forces were incapable of effective resistance across the front. Those forces which could stand and fight were outflanked by collapses elsewhere, and often surrounded and destroyed. Reserves and recruits were thrown into the line to stem the rout, and were consumed.

But if Soviet forces are fighting hard from the start...

Would the Allies have made a separate peace with Hitler so as to prevent a totally Red Europe?

Which Allies? Not the US or Britain.

However - Suppose the US remained Isolationist; and suppose that the ULTRA secret leaked from Vichy French intelligence to the Germans in 1940. (France was a full partner in breaking Enigma in early 1940. Even after Petain's capitulation, the Polish exile codebreakers were kept at work on Enigma by Vichy France's intelligence service. So they had it - and it could have leaked.)

1) No Lend-Lease.
2) No ULTRA intelligence for the Battle of the Atlantic, which means very heavy shipping losses all the way through 1940 to 1943. By 1943, Britain is starving and makes peace, regardless.

Meanwhile, as above... and the USSR sweeps west.
 
There is another way, too. Everything goes pretty much OTL, except, say Soviets are able to extricate some more troops from the pockets prior to Stalingrad battle. Those additional troops prove decisive in the Soviet counteroffensive and they manage to cut off the entire HGS or at least HGA in Caucasus.

The collapse of the entire left wing on the Eastern Front ensues and the Soviets advance to the Romanian borders within two months, rolling up HGM and threatening to envelop HGN in the process. Romania and Finland sue for peace. By mid-'43 Red Army stands at German 1940 borders, poised to strike into the heartland of the German empire.

Meanwhile, on the western front Italy has collapsed in June, as the Allies advance towards Rome, facing token opposition.


Hitler goes totally insane or is assassinated by much more determined army opposition and than either the Allies advance right to Berlin and meet Soviets there, or, say, Himmler goes on with desperate resistance in the crumbling remnants of the Third Reich until early 1944.
 
Top