General Zod
Banned
This thread is meant to discuss the strategic course of a WWII where a Russo-German-Italian Axis fights British-Commonwealth-American "Allies". Various different PoDs and scenarioes are provided below. Pick whatever you deem more interesting and/or plausible.
Some common assumptions to all scenarioes: Japan may be an ally of UK-USA, fight its own separate war to conquer China but be otherwise neutral, or start a parallel war against the Allies to conquer South East Asia, but is never a member of the Axis. The strategic alliance between Germany, Italy, and Russia never breaks down up to and throughout WWII (with a possible exception for one PoD option, see below). France (and Italy if it's not a member of the Axis in the first place) begins the war on the Allies' side, but is invaded, occupied, and turned into a satellite of the Axis. Owning to either pre-WWII events or the outcome of the first phase of the war, Germany owns Austria, Bohemia-Moravia, Netherlands, Flanders, Western Poland (either the 1914 borders or the 1939 partition), Luxemburg, Alsace, and all of Lorraine; Russia owns Finland, Eastern Poland (either the 1914 borders plus Galicia or the 1939 partition), the Baltics, and Bessarabia-Bukovina; Italy owns Nice, Savoy, Corsica, South Tyrol, Austrian Littoral, Dalmatia, Albania; Hungary is an Axis satellite and owns Slovakia, Backa, western Crisana, and northern Transylvania; Romania is an Axis satellite as well and owns southern Transylvania and the Banat.
Note: please remember that in NO scenario Hitler is the leader of Germany nor Stalin of Russia by the time the alliance occurs, so the psychological issues of both are not a valid objection.
A) "Revanchist Entente teams up with the USA for a rematch". Germany, Russia, and Italy form the Triple Alliance in the 1880s (Bismarck has a prophetic epiphany about European alliance systems in the early-mid 1870s, so he purposefully backs Russian claims in the Balkans and opposes A-H ones since the Congress of Berlin in 1878, see here for detailed discussion of the PoD) and fight WWI against the Quadruple Entente (Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire) to a total victory. Besides the above settlement, Germany, Russia, and Italy partitioned the French colonial empire and the Middle East, plus bits of the British and Japanese colonial possessions (Germany: Morocco, half of Algeria, Gabon, Middle Congo, Ubangi-Shari, half of French Western Africa, Palestine, Syria, Iraq/Kuwait, Indochina; Russia: Northern Anatolia, the Turkish Straits, Persia, Afghanistan, Manchuria; Italy: half of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, all of Somalia, Chad, half of French Western Africa, Malta, Cyprus, southern Anatolia). Egypt-Sudan has been turned into a German-italian protectorate and the control of the Suez Canal is shared by Germany, Italy, and Russia. Both Japan and Britain got it off lightly, only losing Manchuria and being expelled from the Mediterranean, northeastern Africa, and the Middle East, respectively. A generation later, the TA has maintained its strategic partnership thanks to strong economic and political links, but has developed a worsening strategic rivalry with the USA and Britain over hegemony of Asia, while Nazi France and militarist Japan got increasingly revanchist. Eventually, these tensions exploded in WWII.
B) "Smart totalitarians stick together". Owning to the deaths of Hitler and Stalin in late 1939 (respectively succeeded by Goering and Molotov), and Anglo-French intervention in the Winter War, the leaderships of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Fascist Italy are able to sign a strategic alliance, the Tripartite/Axis Pact in early 1940, with a full military alliance, economic cooperation, and a partition of Eurasia: Germany lays claims to Benelux, France, Scandinavia, Western Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Syria, Palestine, Iraq/Kuwait, central and southern Africa; Russia to Finland, Eastern Poland, Bessarabia, the Baltics, Bulgaria, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, and India; Italy to Yugoslavia, Greece, northern and northeastern Africa. All three regimes gradually shift their ideology and propaganda to deemphasize ideologic hostility to each other and emphasize the one with Western democracies. Nazi Germany revises its geopolitical aims to see central-southern Africa as its Lebenstraum, and targets northern and western Europe for racial-political assimilation, while Soviet Russia redefines the Middle East, Central, and South Asia as its main direction of expansion. A demilitarized zone on the German-Russian border is established with air recognition rights for both parties and transition rights for allied expeditionary forces.
C) "Fascists stick together". Owning to the victory of the Whites in the Russian Civil War and a takeover by far-right not-Nazi nationalists in Germany, both Germany and Russia develop vanilla fascist (not Nazist) regimes in the 1920s-1930s and an increasing economic, military, and political cooperation which blossoms into a full military alliance, soon joined by Fascist Italy and Hungary, against the increasing hostility of France and Britain. Albeit the Axis bloc was initially strong enough to bully the Western powers into allowing the Axis rearmement and partition of various countries in Central and Eastern Europe, eventually enough was enough and war erupted.
D) "Communists stick together". Italy initially is not a full member of the Alliance initially (albeit it soon becomes a conquered satellite). An unfortunate string of circumstances causes victory of Trotzki in the struggle for leadership of Soviet Russia in the the 1920s and a Communist takeover in Germany in the early 30s. The two Communist powerhouses are soon able to build an efficient economic, political, and military partnership, and their combined forces and influence overrun Central Europe in the mid-late 1930s. Alternatively, Germany fell to Communism in 1919, combined forces of Communist Germany and Soviet Russia overrun Central Europe, the revolution in Germany makes the internationalist Trotski-Zinoviev faction seize the leadership in Soviet Russia, and develop a constructive German-Russian leadership of the communist bloc. The Entente powers are too exausted by WWI to stage a counteroffensive, so they fortify on the Rhine and the Alps. They regret the decision a generation later, when the Communist bloc has developed enough to overrun Westren Europe.
Pick whatever option do you prefer, discuss the merits of the variosu PoDs, but please do not forget to discuss the strategic issues, course, and outcome of WWII in this scenario.The thread is meant as a wargame, after all. The scenario provides you with the ultimate land vs. naval, America vs. Europe, German-Russian vs. Anglo-Saxon, Oceania vs. Eurasia, and in all but one option, Democracy vs. Totalitarianism, titanic struggle.
Some common assumptions to all scenarioes: Japan may be an ally of UK-USA, fight its own separate war to conquer China but be otherwise neutral, or start a parallel war against the Allies to conquer South East Asia, but is never a member of the Axis. The strategic alliance between Germany, Italy, and Russia never breaks down up to and throughout WWII (with a possible exception for one PoD option, see below). France (and Italy if it's not a member of the Axis in the first place) begins the war on the Allies' side, but is invaded, occupied, and turned into a satellite of the Axis. Owning to either pre-WWII events or the outcome of the first phase of the war, Germany owns Austria, Bohemia-Moravia, Netherlands, Flanders, Western Poland (either the 1914 borders or the 1939 partition), Luxemburg, Alsace, and all of Lorraine; Russia owns Finland, Eastern Poland (either the 1914 borders plus Galicia or the 1939 partition), the Baltics, and Bessarabia-Bukovina; Italy owns Nice, Savoy, Corsica, South Tyrol, Austrian Littoral, Dalmatia, Albania; Hungary is an Axis satellite and owns Slovakia, Backa, western Crisana, and northern Transylvania; Romania is an Axis satellite as well and owns southern Transylvania and the Banat.
Note: please remember that in NO scenario Hitler is the leader of Germany nor Stalin of Russia by the time the alliance occurs, so the psychological issues of both are not a valid objection.
A) "Revanchist Entente teams up with the USA for a rematch". Germany, Russia, and Italy form the Triple Alliance in the 1880s (Bismarck has a prophetic epiphany about European alliance systems in the early-mid 1870s, so he purposefully backs Russian claims in the Balkans and opposes A-H ones since the Congress of Berlin in 1878, see here for detailed discussion of the PoD) and fight WWI against the Quadruple Entente (Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire) to a total victory. Besides the above settlement, Germany, Russia, and Italy partitioned the French colonial empire and the Middle East, plus bits of the British and Japanese colonial possessions (Germany: Morocco, half of Algeria, Gabon, Middle Congo, Ubangi-Shari, half of French Western Africa, Palestine, Syria, Iraq/Kuwait, Indochina; Russia: Northern Anatolia, the Turkish Straits, Persia, Afghanistan, Manchuria; Italy: half of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, all of Somalia, Chad, half of French Western Africa, Malta, Cyprus, southern Anatolia). Egypt-Sudan has been turned into a German-italian protectorate and the control of the Suez Canal is shared by Germany, Italy, and Russia. Both Japan and Britain got it off lightly, only losing Manchuria and being expelled from the Mediterranean, northeastern Africa, and the Middle East, respectively. A generation later, the TA has maintained its strategic partnership thanks to strong economic and political links, but has developed a worsening strategic rivalry with the USA and Britain over hegemony of Asia, while Nazi France and militarist Japan got increasingly revanchist. Eventually, these tensions exploded in WWII.
B) "Smart totalitarians stick together". Owning to the deaths of Hitler and Stalin in late 1939 (respectively succeeded by Goering and Molotov), and Anglo-French intervention in the Winter War, the leaderships of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Fascist Italy are able to sign a strategic alliance, the Tripartite/Axis Pact in early 1940, with a full military alliance, economic cooperation, and a partition of Eurasia: Germany lays claims to Benelux, France, Scandinavia, Western Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Syria, Palestine, Iraq/Kuwait, central and southern Africa; Russia to Finland, Eastern Poland, Bessarabia, the Baltics, Bulgaria, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, and India; Italy to Yugoslavia, Greece, northern and northeastern Africa. All three regimes gradually shift their ideology and propaganda to deemphasize ideologic hostility to each other and emphasize the one with Western democracies. Nazi Germany revises its geopolitical aims to see central-southern Africa as its Lebenstraum, and targets northern and western Europe for racial-political assimilation, while Soviet Russia redefines the Middle East, Central, and South Asia as its main direction of expansion. A demilitarized zone on the German-Russian border is established with air recognition rights for both parties and transition rights for allied expeditionary forces.
C) "Fascists stick together". Owning to the victory of the Whites in the Russian Civil War and a takeover by far-right not-Nazi nationalists in Germany, both Germany and Russia develop vanilla fascist (not Nazist) regimes in the 1920s-1930s and an increasing economic, military, and political cooperation which blossoms into a full military alliance, soon joined by Fascist Italy and Hungary, against the increasing hostility of France and Britain. Albeit the Axis bloc was initially strong enough to bully the Western powers into allowing the Axis rearmement and partition of various countries in Central and Eastern Europe, eventually enough was enough and war erupted.
D) "Communists stick together". Italy initially is not a full member of the Alliance initially (albeit it soon becomes a conquered satellite). An unfortunate string of circumstances causes victory of Trotzki in the struggle for leadership of Soviet Russia in the the 1920s and a Communist takeover in Germany in the early 30s. The two Communist powerhouses are soon able to build an efficient economic, political, and military partnership, and their combined forces and influence overrun Central Europe in the mid-late 1930s. Alternatively, Germany fell to Communism in 1919, combined forces of Communist Germany and Soviet Russia overrun Central Europe, the revolution in Germany makes the internationalist Trotski-Zinoviev faction seize the leadership in Soviet Russia, and develop a constructive German-Russian leadership of the communist bloc. The Entente powers are too exausted by WWI to stage a counteroffensive, so they fortify on the Rhine and the Alps. They regret the decision a generation later, when the Communist bloc has developed enough to overrun Westren Europe.
Pick whatever option do you prefer, discuss the merits of the variosu PoDs, but please do not forget to discuss the strategic issues, course, and outcome of WWII in this scenario.The thread is meant as a wargame, after all. The scenario provides you with the ultimate land vs. naval, America vs. Europe, German-Russian vs. Anglo-Saxon, Oceania vs. Eurasia, and in all but one option, Democracy vs. Totalitarianism, titanic struggle.
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