It depends who emerges in his stead. If you get perpetual screw ups like Buddeny and Timoshenko then you get somewhat worse performance than otl (it should be noted the Zhukov wasted a lot of men and operation mars was one of the most disasterous battles in the history of modern war, with the Germans knocking out almost two thousand tanks and inflicting casualties at a ratio approaching 10 to 1)Just say that in Stalins purges Zhukov gets knocked off, how would this affect defence of Leningrad, counter-attack at Moscow and Stalingrad
It depends who emerges in his stead. If you get perpetual screw ups like Buddeny and Timoshenko then you get somewhat worse performance than otl (it should be noted the Zhukov wasted a lot of men and operation mars was one of the most disasterous battles in the history of modern war, with the Germans knocking out almost two thousand tanks and inflicting casualties at a ratio approaching 10 to 1)
If you get more competent guys who don't waste men they do somewhat better (Chuikov, Vatuin or Rokkosovsky would be possibilities)
Just say that in Stalins purges Zhukov gets knocked off, how would this affect defence of Leningrad, counter-attack at Moscow and Stalingrad
Eh, the Soviet success against the Japanese was more thanks to Shtern than to Zhukov, who just happened to be a noteworthy divisional commander. The reason Georgy boy gets all the credit is because Stalin had Shtern purged in '41 and Zhukov claimed all of the glory for himself in his memoirs.Offing Zhukov in the purges has greater butterflies than you may think. Without him, there are rather good chances of Japan achieving a stalemate in the 1939 Russo-Japanese undeclared conflict. This would leave Japan confident that it may achieve victory in Manchuria with a little more preparation, and much more willing to join Barbarossa in 1941.