Soviets early attack

Mrstrategy

Banned
What if the soviets attacked the Germans when they invaded Poland(they don't honor the agrement with germany/no deal with germany)
 
Hard to tell whether this goes worse for the Soviets (who are going to get CRUSHED militarily - they're in the middle of a complete overhaul) or the Germans (who are not going to win a two front war).
 
It would be a complete disaster for the Soviets. The Red Army in 1939 was not prepared for a major war for a variety of reasons:

1. The officer corps had been decimated by the Great Purge. 3 out of 5 Marshals, 15 out of 16 army commanders, 50 out of 57 corps commanders, and 154 out of 186 division commanders were executed. They were replaced by men who were often far less competent, and in any case were afraid to do anything that hadn't been approved by their superiors. The Red Army also had reinstated a system of political commissioners, who were equally as powerful as the officers who commanded units and whose job was basically to ensure that their fellow officers were loyal. Many experienced Soviet pilots and flight instructors were also killed, leaving an air force that was undertrained and unprepared.

2. The Red Army was working with poor equipment. The T-34s were not yet in service, and the tanks that did exist (the T-26 and BT-series tanks) were obsolete. German anti-tank artillery could easily penetrate their armor, and the T-26 design created major problems (for example when older T-26s were hit the rivets on the tank had a tendency to break off and fly at the crew like shrapnel). Maintenance standards were also extremely poor, which would have led to a lot of tanks breaking down.

3. The Red Army's logistics system was terrible. The kind of logistics structure needed for a major war simply didn't exist, and had the Soviets been forced to stay on the campaign for a long period of time their units would have suffered shortages in food, oil, and spare parts.

However it would also be a disaster for the Germans. Without the resources from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Germany would have been unable to fight a major war for a long period of time, and at any rate they couldn't fight a two-front war.
 
Germany would also lose all the resources the Soviets supplied to them under the two trade pacts signed in 1939 and 1940.

A Soviet attack also would affect their plans on dealing with the Baltic states. How it would affect the Soviet plans would depend on what happened after the Soviet attack on the Nazis.

For that matter, the Nazis might seek to ally themselves with the Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and/or Finland in a struggle against the Soviets.
 
Germany isn't at it's best either. All it's stunning victories had not yet happened, so there are plenty ways to screw up. The military equipment is still far cry from what they would have 2 years later. The most likely outcome is a prolonged war in Eastern Europe with USSR slowly losing. What UK/France would do meanwhile?
 
The Germans lose, and badly. The stuff they gained from the M-R pact was instrumental to keeping their economy afloat. Even if the Soviet forces that get sent into Poland get badly mauled and retreat back to the Stalin line to wait out the autumn rains and winter snows, they are still far, far, faaar better off compared to the losses they suffered OTL. They also get almost two extra years of on-the-job training compared to OTL, which historically tended to iron out most of the Red Army's deficiencies, despite suffering truely gruesome losses.

With having to man the eastern front, Sickel Cut is not going to cut it any more in the west - the Anglo-French survive to get their shit together, and by 1941 they have taken the western bank of the Rhine with slow, grinding offensives. I would be genuinely surprised if the war lasts any longer than 1942.
 
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