Optimize the Soviet forces for the ww2

tomo pauk

... includes army, air force and navy.
Job starts in 1930. Changes that people deem necessary should be introduced in doctrine, training, logistics, tactics, hardware. Stalin is still very much on charge, for better or worse.
To start the ball rolling: much improved command and control system for the air force; includes posting sleeper agents close to the air bases of the likely opponent, as well as more frequent recon flights near the border when situation demands it.
 

Lalli

Step One: Kill Stalin (either by natural or non-natural ways)
Step Two: Avoid purges on army
Step Three: Let generals/marshals who are not purged work with military reforms.
 

McAuslan_in_the_Rough

Fewer pilots, but train the ones you have better. The USSR inducted absolutely ungodly number of people into flight schools only to have them sit around for literally years because of fuel shortages. And then of course the graduates reaching combat units would still end up with insufficient flying hours.
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
Lalli said:
Step One: Kill Stalin (either by natural or non-natural ways)
Step Two: Avoid purges on army
Step Three: Let generals/marshals who are not purged work with military reforms.
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Step Four: Let the unpurged generals root out the apparatchiks and dead wood - however this may include some of the generals?
Step Five: Do not rule out all intelligence received from sources other than your own.
 

Lalli

Coulsdon Eagle said:
Step Four: Let the unpurged generals root out the apparatchiks and dead wood - however this may include some of the generals?
Step Five: Do not rule out all intelligence received from sources other than your own.
Click to expand...

And yet one thing: Just don't invade a nation with poorly studied assumption. And if you has at least give yours forces suitable clothes, military equipments and prepare months lasting war instead expecting just marching to capital of invaded nation.

And yet: Let generals and marshals do what them have. No micromanagement.
 

Crueldwarf

tomo pauk said:
To start the ball rolling: much improved command and control system for the air force; includes posting sleeper agents close to the air bases of the likely opponent, as well as more frequent recon flights near the border when situation demands it.
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From where you will get people for improving command and control system of the air force?
 

Crueldwarf

tomo pauk said:
From Soviet Union.
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USSR bottleneck in the 30s are educated people. So if you bring people into particular area to 'improve things', you also remove them from another area where things will become worse.
Stalin didn't have clone factories in Siberia that produced ready-to-use specialists on demand.
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
Crueldwarf said:
USSR bottleneck in the 30s are educated people. So if you bring people into particular area to 'improve things', you also remove them from another area where things will become worse.
Stalin didn't have clone factories in Siberia that produced ready-to-use specialists on demand.
Click to expand...
But he could stop shooting / gaoling / exiling so many "educated" people. How many tank or aircraft designers were jettisoned? Doctors? Young men& women who could have contributed to the advance of Soviet Union Science?
 
RedSword12

RedSword12

More practical proof-of-concept exercises. Deep Battle was underdeveloped, even when Tukhachevsky was still alive. What the Soviets needed to do was more acid tests, things like the German maneuvers and Funkübungen (radio exercises) of the interwar period. The Wehrmacht benefited a great deal from constantly conducting tests to work out the kinks in their doctrine and command & control; the Soviets came up with a lot of good ideas, but didn't put as much attention on practical application as they needed to, which cost them dearly when the institutional deficiencies of the Red Army were exploited in 1941 and to a lesser extent by the Finns in the Winter War. Deep Battle is all well and good, but it won't really help when the institutional infrastructure for command and control barely functions.
 

James Ricker

Improve communications from the top down to squad level
That would improve Command coordination and Allow the Soviets to take more advantage of their massive artillery superiority
 

Sol Zagato

Start industrializing the Urals on day one.

Is collectivization of agriculture inevitable? If so, find a radically different approach.

Echoing above comments on avoiding the purges, greater field testing, fewer, more skilled pilots.
 

tomo pauk

Air force:
- make the training more diverse, like one vs. two, two vs. two, two vs. one, 4 vs. 4 etc.
- night flying training for the bombers crews
- radio location devices
- radio navigation using both own and enemy transmitters
- once I-16 is around, don't fiddle with biplane fighters
- make a proper heir to the I-16 by late 1930s (ie. 1-2 years earlier than the MiG-1/Yak-1/LaGG/3)
- make the proper heir to the SB by late 1930s
- high-performance high-altitude long-range recons are cool
- make two cannons as standard fighter armament once the Shvak is available
- drop tanks are cool
- fighters that can also bomb are cool, too
- don't touch the G&R radial engines at all, shop at P&W instead
- press on with big Mikulin's V12s
 

Parmenion

Go back on your word on providing material to the Germans from 39-41. Worst case scenario they have slightly less resources, best case scenario Hitler gets angry and invades before he's ready.
 

The Tai-Pan

Parmenion said:
Go back on your word on providing material to the Germans from 39-41. Worst case scenario they have slightly less resources, best case scenario Hitler gets angry and invades before he's ready.
Click to expand...
Ran across this in a fantasy book once, seems to apply here.

"No room here for hate. Strictly business. War is about mess kettles and latrines and having the last set of warm, dry fighters in reserve.” He nodded. “I think the sorcerer hates us. That would be excellent.”'
 

tomo pauk

Suggestions for the land-based forces:
- main enemy (apart the Stain's clique) in a modern war might be the enemy airforce, so much more air-defense assets are needed
- luckily, it is relatively easy to turn an AA gun into a gun that attacks ground targets if the enemy air force is neutralized, or it is a non-issue
- the switch/upgrade to the 85mm AA gun needs to happen by mid-1930s, so there is a lot of them already to use by late 1930s
- army on the move and in action also requires the close-in air defense in form of the self-propelled guns - the 37-40 mm guns are excellent for this job, the 25mm can jump in instead if the platform (AFV/tank/truck) is too light for the big guns; even the twin DShK will come in handy
- light tanks armed with automatic guns can do the double duty; one of the duties includes providing the anti-aircraft fire - so plan ahead for high elevation and for the 2-men turrets on the light tanks
- the 25mm, let alone 37-40mm will do a number on many tanks from late 1930s/early 1940s
- a DShK on a big tank might be a good idea well before 1950s
 
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