So what if the Soviets did a big amphibic assault on enemy coastal defensis or beaches in general roughly comparable in numbers and material of Western Allies Normandy ? So I was thinking maybe of an assault on the Baltic coasts of Nazi held territory or even core Reich areas or Black Sea. Maybe with the help of American material aid it is possible? Could Soviet operation landings at different beaches in the later stages of the war have been feasable ?
Soviet D-Day
- Thread starter Byzantion
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RamscoopRaider
Donor
The Soviets can't do it. Operation Neptune involved 4126 Landing craft, 736 support craft and 864 Merchant vessels to move 160,000 men, to say nothing of the warships protecting them. The Soviet Kerch-Eltigen Operation involved 150,000 men total, but took over a month to move 75,000 men across the straits, while the WAllies landed those 160,000 men in one day over 5x the distance, I don't think the Soviets moved over much 5,000 men in one day. Later when the Soviets invaded the Kurile Islands they had to beg for a mere 30 American landing craft to help move only 15,000 men
Until 1945 the US and UK don't have landing craft to spare to help out, the pace of amphibious operations was dependent on the availability of landing craft within theater, giving a bunch to the Soviets will only slow things down for them
Until 1945 the US and UK don't have landing craft to spare to help out, the pace of amphibious operations was dependent on the availability of landing craft within theater, giving a bunch to the Soviets will only slow things down for them
The soviet fleet in ww2. I would say pretty strong for a mostly land based power. OTl the naval budget of the Red Navy during the interwar era was very bungled up. So just remove the bungling and you would get a stronger Red Fleet which could feasibly take on large amphibious attacks. Though not a guarantee
The Soviet Union was a continental military power. They did not have, and did not need, the naval power to conduct a large Invasion as the U.S. and U.K. did. Both were traditional naval powers and used that power to re-enter the continent. the Soviet Union used their vast land based power to force the German forces back across the large land mass between the power bases of the two countries.
That "Bungling" mostly consisted of the aftermath of an horrific civil war. They managed to get their army and air force programs running competitively with the west in the 30s and were getting there with their naval program in the late 30s. One look at a map will demonstrate why the army and air force where their main priorities.
Tell that to the 1933 Shipbuilding programme. It was way better than the 1926 one, but failed to reach its goals because the allocated money was taking too long through the bureaucracy to come properly and corruption ate through an eighth of its total money. A proper completion of the 1933 shipbuilding program would have profound effects. Especially in Wehrmacht planning and the Winter War as well as the Soviet-Japanese skirmishes.
Also being a continental power has never stopped Russia from maintaining a navy in the top 5 ever since the end of the Great Northern War. Not much of an argument. Land took more priority but the Russians never left their navy far behind.
When the entire middle class of a country is declared as former people and removed from the economy what do you expect?
Considering the number of people killed and the magnitude of the social changes its impressive that anything worked at all in the Soviet economy in the early 30s.
The Soviet navy was not in the top 5 in the 20 and 30, being behind the UK, USA, Japan, France and Italy, and being passed by Germany during the war.
Take away the battleships, and until the late 30s what you have is a coastal force of old DD (with 4'' guns and 18'' TT) backed by a few old cruisers.
The soviet navy until the massive post war programs was more akin in terms of oceanic surface warfare capability to Argentina than to the major navies.
What they had was lots of submarines and coastal forces.
Uh diversion of allocated money through mismanagement and corruption has nothing to do with labour force who have to actually build the ships........
Also Russian shipbuilding capability was one of the least hit during ww1 and the civil war in manpower and labor lost.
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Their first efforts at shipbuilding where a disaster, with the project 1 DL taking a long time to complete and never satisfactory in service and the project 2 TB being all sorts of bad.
The capabilities that had allowed the IRN to build competitive ships were lost during the turmoil of the revolution and RCW and they required foreign assistance to strengthen their capabilities.
They where capable of working up a core of capable aircraft designers and weapon designers, but took a decade longer to reach the same level with warships.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
No, because even if the warships to protect the landing are there, the issue is amphibious tonnage. Before 1939 only Japan had any real dedicated amphibious ships, as only they were doing or seriously considering doing amphibious operations. The US and UK basically built all the amphibious tonnage used for Neptune from 1941-43 thereabouts. The USSR does not have the free shipbuilding resources to do that during the war and them diverting that kind of resources before the war would have negative effects elsewhere
Russia/Soviet's main problem was that geography had dealt them a seriously dud hand when it came to naval power. Three theatres, all of which basically isolated from the others [Black, Pacific and Baltic/Arctic - and the latter could/was divided in two by hostiles blocking the Denmark Straits]. Serious lack of decent 'warm water ports' too. By 1939 it was perhaps a skeleton fleet of old pre-WWI larger ships of varying capability and condition and decent amount of new smaller ships and submarines. It was a classic 'green water navy'; one which could mainly only operate relatively well close to the seaboards of the USSR itself.
The other thing is lack of not just of logistics, but of 'institutional memory and skill'; that while the Anglo-Americans hadn't pulled off anything the size of Normandy before, they had not only performed landings before [Torch, Dardenelles etc] but were also relatively familiar with 'out of theatre operations' involving large fleets [civilian and military]. The Soviet Navy would lack both of this as well as the kit to do it.
The other thing is lack of not just of logistics, but of 'institutional memory and skill'; that while the Anglo-Americans hadn't pulled off anything the size of Normandy before, they had not only performed landings before [Torch, Dardenelles etc] but were also relatively familiar with 'out of theatre operations' involving large fleets [civilian and military]. The Soviet Navy would lack both of this as well as the kit to do it.