The Great Crusade (Reds! Part 3)
- Thread starter Aelita
- Start date
Correct.
I had always intended to do something about Big Bill Haywood's martydom, but somehow never got around to it.
I'll probably get around to it eventually. Afterall, post-Civil War America will need its monuments. I sort of imagine him going out Durruti style, leading a militia column in the desperate defense of Chicago.
The Siege of Leningrad, Winter 1940-41
The Siege of Leningrad
Excerpts from Ernesto Guevara, Revolutionary War Doctrine in the Second World War, (Lexington, KY: Hans Kahle Military Academy Press, 1979)
After six years of refinement, revolutionary war doctrine would face its final test. The fate of hundreds of millions of workers would hang in the balance.
It is important to emphasize to the layman that revolutionary war doctrine was not the product of any singular genius. Nor was it limited to any geographic locality. While its theory and praxis are often heavily tied to the legacy of George Patton, David Eisenhower, Harry Haywood and James Doolittle, its development even before the Red May Revolution involved the work of hundreds of soldiers, some prominent and others obscure.
In spite of the contributions that Soviet military officers made, it had fallen out of favor within the Soviet military establishment. A cadre of conservative military men had been favored by Stalin's clique over men like Frunze and Tukhachevsky, who were stuck theorizing how to refight the Great War. Consequently, the great insights of maneuver war, deep battle and defense in depth had only penetrated skin deep within the RKKA before Mikhail Frunze's rehabilitation.
In the UASR, it was the guiding doctrine of the WFRA. And with the beginning of mass deployment to the Soviet Union, its practitioners finally had the chance to test their doctrine against a peer adversary.
The WFRA's organization emphasized the corps as the focal point of operations. A corps would act as a coherent combined arms unit, uniting armor, infantry, artillery, and aviation. A mechanized corps deployed to the Soviet theater in 1940 would typically contain three divisions—one armored, two mechanized infantry—supported by an independent aviation brigade, a corps artillery brigade, two independent assault gun regiments, a pathfinder regiment and an antiaircraft regiment. Mechanized infantry and armored divisions were quite similar in internal organization. Each was composed of four maneuver regiments, supported by an artillery regiment, assault gun, engineer, signals and anti-aircraft battalions, plus logistical support units.
A mechanized infantry division would have three mechanized infantry regiments, each with its own company of assault guns, plus a tank regiment. An armored division would have two each of mechanized infantry and tank regiments. Under Frunze's direction as the Soviet Chief of the General Staff, the RKKA had begun to adapt this organizational form, though by the beginning of Operation Teutonic very few units had completed reorganization (notably, Rokossovsky's 9th Mechanized Corps). By comparison, the bulk of Soviet armored formations were tank heavy and inflexible. The lack of infantry and artillery support made them vulnerable on the defensive.
All support units were fully motorized in this schema, and a few elite units were adopting fully mechanized self-propelled artillery upon deployment. The A-4 "Mother Jones" self-propelled howitzer and the SA-77 "Hammer" assault gun shared the chassis, running gear and engine of the T-4 "John Henry" tank, simplifying logistics. Most light motorized functions were accomplished by variants of the GPV-5 light truck (commonly known to redfists as the "jeep").
Corps aviation brigades typically consisted of two tactical aviation regiments, plus ground support and logistics units. Each tactical regiment would operate a mix of fighter and ground attack aircraft, normally two squadrons of each. In 1940, they were typically equipped with A-14 "Shillelagh" ground attackers and either F-34 "Belladonna" or F-35 "Yeoman" fighters, though some were deployed with the older F-28 "Burro". At full strength, each squadron typically had twelve attack aircraft or fifteen fighters, with between fifteen and eighteen crews.
On the offensive, the mechanized corps would function as cohesive manipular unit. Each division or support brigade, like a finger, could probe for weakness independently, or the whole unit could close into a tight fist. A typical offensive operation would begin with corps aviation striking in depth along the axis of advance. Ground attackers would strike the logistical backbone of the opponent. The special warfare units would penetrate behind enemy lines, often by parachute. From there, they would coordinate with partisans, integrating them into the corps commander's battle plan, strike sensitive rear echelon targets, and gather intelligence.
Assault guns supported by combat engineers would break through defensive works if necessary. Armor and mechanized infantry would follow through these schwerpunkt, making rapid dagger thrusts through into the enemy rear, containing enemy strength pockets. Isolated tanks would be attacked by airpower and assault guns acting in a tank destroyer role.
Enemy counterattacks would be resolved as necessary, typically by bringing the headquarters' reserve tank regiment into action. The corps commander needed to balance the overall operations plan with the dictates of the rapidly evolving battlefield. As Patton emphasized in his 1937 monograph On Revolutionary War, "the democratic military's strength is preserving the initiative of subordinate units in action. Like the Party, the revolutionary army operates under the regime of democratic centralism. Thus it is imperative that the commanding council avoid the excessive interference in the operation of subordinate units. The corps is the center of operation planning: its command must give clear directives to the division headquarters. The division headquarters must have the flexibility to respond to evolving battlefield conditions to fulfill those directives."
This pattern continues down the chain of command, all the way to the squad and fireteam. While no military system is perfect, the chief strength of the revolutionary doctrine, aside from its unique appreciation for the subversion of enemy populations and state power, is the flexibility it grants to subordinate units. While some units may underperform under their own initiative, it also prevents the whole unit from marching to the wrong orders based on the mistaken assumptions of its commander. It also presents an revolutionary pressure on the democratic command hierarchy: leaders(1) can develop flexibility and creativity early on in their careers. Poor leaders can be weeded out from the command echelon early, whereas in other systems such a leader who is proficient at following the rigid dictates of their superiors may rise to a position well above their level of competence at actually leading soldiers in combat.
…There is a basic level of offensive bias to revolutionary war doctrine, which left the WFRA leadership off-balance in the opening phases of the Second World War. The military had expected the primary theater of action to be against the British Empire. Patton himself had led the team that developed Case Comwell and Case Bonaparte; the series of master operational war plans against Great Britain. Under Case Cromwell, upon the beginning of hostilities, mechanized forces would invade Canada across the St. Laurence River and from the northern Great Plains. Naval militia and WFRN Great Lakes units would support further exploit operations into Ontario and Manitoba.
As British military exercises concluded, the combined Imperial North American forces had no hope of repelling an American invasion of Canada. The succeeding case, Bonaparte, detailed efforts by the WFRN to wrest control of the Atlantic from the Royal Navy while deflecting efforts by the Imperial Japanese Navy to strike at more far flung American territories such as Alaska or Hawaii. Upon defeating the Royal Navy via a struggle of attrition, Comintern forces in the Western Hemisphere would begin to evict all imperialist presence in the hemisphere.
The Revolutionary Navy would sit astride the vast supply lines where the lifeblood of the British Empire flowed from the colonies into the imperial center. The Royal Navy would now be forced into engaging the WFRN in decisive battle, and it would do so from a position of weakness assured by American material superiority. The alternative was being choked into submission.
With the Royal Navy annihilated, the Comintern would negotiate terms of surrender. The Stavka envisioned nothing less than ceding all of Britain's colonies to the Comintern, who would establish revolutionary governments led by native communist parties and left-wing nationalists. A collapse to internal revolution was considered inevitable after such a decisive blow to the establishment: the Comintern would encourage this through the benevolent conduct in the war and the peace settlement.
Needless to say, this operational planning was mostly useless for the current task. While the naval strategy for convoy security proved as useful against German submarines and cruisers as British ones, much of the campaign planning was ad hoc.
…The winter campaign began in mid-December. Army Group Center had reported its exhaustion to the OKW, and for once, Hitler accepted his commander's prognosis. It had achieved its operational objectives. While Center dug in to winter in the area surrounding Smolensk, Army Group North had earned the Führer's displeasure. Leningrad remained untaken, a symbol of defiance to Nazi destiny. Forgoing military prudence, Hitler ordered a redoubling of efforts.
Guderian gave his opponents little time to breathe. While he strongly protested against beginning military operations amidst freezing winter storms, he was satisfied that his Panzer forces were for the time being given adequate logistical support. The Baltic states had not been subject to the scorched earth tactics that the rest of Nazi conquests had, enabling nearly unhindered rail transit to the front line. Consequently, Guderian was able to replace his lost tanks and mechanized equipment in more favorable conditions. The new PzKpfw III Ausf. F, with the 7.5 cm KwK 40 L/43 gun, was being equipped to his best units, albeit in small quantities. Based on the painful lessons learned at the hands of American mechanized forces, Guderian increased the number of StuG III assault guns, particularly in his Panzergrenadier units.
Meanwhile, Patton was busy negotiating the perils of forming a unified Comintern armed forces. Foreign Secretary Browder had practically taken up residence in Moscow on this matter. Stalin had been enthusiastic about the idea in theory. But he continued to frustrate the practice by insisting on a secondary role for American contingents, which would in effect relegate American troops to an auxiliary role in a Soviet led army.
As a token of this experiment, the American First Army would be integrated into the Leningrad Front hierarchy. Patton found it hard to work with Timoshenko. While he respected the old-fashioned military man, he found their two schools of military though to be irreconcilable. And while Timoshenko was impressed by Patton's revolutionary zeal and his organizational aptitude, he found him too adventurous, almost reckless. It would take many long months of conflict for the two to form an effective working relationship.
Patton had counseled a pre-emptive counterattack. In his previous clashes with Guderian, he felt he had soused out the 4th Panzer Army's weaknesses, which he believed he could effectively exploit on the offensive in spite of having fewer men and tanks available. He argued vehemently that they needed to dictate the terms of the engagement, or else "that old rascal," his preferred epithet for Guderian, would do the same to the defenders of Leningrad.
While it wasn't apparent in their correspondence, Timoshenko knew this. Allowing Guderian to resume the offensive would place his troops in a difficult position, and it would be unlikely that they could stop Army Group North from sieging Leningrad. Where he parted company with Patton was the idea that his mechanized forces available to him, even the much vaunted First Army, could deflect the Germans from their course. He was learning the ways of the modern battlefield. If they had been able to strike a few weeks earlier, Patton might have succeeded. But Army Group North had too much time to consolidate its position. The foot-mobile infantry and horse-drawn artillery had arrived in force. They had more than enough anti-tank guns and artillery to frustrate offensive operations.
Timoshenko argued he needed those tanks to be held in reserve to safeguard the city. And since he ultimately had Stalin's trust, it did not ultimately matter who was supported by military science.
…The offensive began in the early hours of 5 January 1941. Panzergrenadiers attacked the fortified positions of the Soviet 23rd Army. The day was cold and clear, and the poorly supplied Soviet troops resisted bitterly. But they faced simultaneous attack from the air and the ground. They could not prevent Guderian's forces from opening deep gashes in the front lines. Guderian's Panzers began large scything cuts towards Leningrad and Veliky Novgorod.
Timoshenko felt vindicated in his assessment. With some cajoling, he convinced Patton to agree to divide his forces, detaching the V Mechanized Corps and the VII Army Corps, along with the Soviet 17th Mechanized Corps, to the operational command of the newly raised 2nd Tank Army under General-Colonel Georgy Zhukov. The two brash, oft cantankerous generals would sit at the fulcrum of Timoshenko's defensive plans.
Timoshenko had arrayed his forces with a deliberate eye towards Tukhachevsky's defense-in-depth, with successive lines of entrenched infantry, supported by anti-tank and field guns. The approaches to the Leningrad tactical zone were heavily mined, serving to funnel enemy forces into optimal kill zones. German spearheads would be blunted by the successive nets of resistance. In the rear, mechanized and aviation forces lay ready to begin counterattacks, both to destroy enemy spearheads and if possible begin further exploit operations.
While the theory was sound, the practice was heavily compromised. While Timoshenko displayed the vigor of a much younger man in organizing his forces for the defense of Leningrad, the men and materiel to mount a proper defense of the city were simply not available. The infantry front line consisted primarily of freshly raised conscripts, inadequately trained for the task at hand. The local militsiya had been pressed into a military role to fill the gap.
On paper, the 30 infantry divisions attached to the Leningrad Front presented a formidable obstacle. But after six months of hard fighting, only the six American motorized divisions were above half strength. All were hindered by shortages of fuel, spare parts, and ammunition. The army in the field still operated large forces of legacy equipment that was not STANAG compliant. Perhaps a fifth of the artillery pieces in the Front were all but useless, having since exhausted their ammunition reserves. And since further production had been discontinued to concentrate efforts on standardized equipment, they could serve only as a source of cannibalized spare parts and scrap metal.
…German troops, though exhausted from the long campaign and harsh winter conditions, had prevailed. After three days of fighting, the Soviet defense lines were collapsing along the front. Guderian, a Prussian officer through and through, attempted to encircle the routing rifle corps and engage in a battle of annihilation. But Zhukov's tanks struck like a sledgehammer on the approaches to the city. The encirclements collapsed amidst mass tank warfare.
But it was clear the Germans were winning the battle of attrition. On 10 January, the Leningrad party chair Sergei Kirov finally secured permission from Sovnarkom to begin final evacuation of the city. The great city, already greatly emptied after the initial German rush in the fall, would be emptied of all but critical personnel. Only troops, war industry workers and basic infrastructure would remain behind.
Stavka delivered its new orders to the Leningrad Front: hold the line at any price long enough to complete evacuation of the city. It had been deemed critical to the war effort to preserve a moral victory here at the darkest hour following the invasion.
So Timoshenko pressed the NKVD into service. Order would be preserved, both among soldiers and civilians, regardless of the brutality needed. American troops, particularly the soldier-commissars, would preserve discipline and morale.
This was not well received within the American expeditionary forces. In general, American troops refused the order to summarily execute those guilty of cowardice or "desertion": in those dark days, these charges were applied indiscriminately, often against soldiers making wise tactical retreats. While the NKVD's Main Directorate of State Security was filled with military novices and party fanatics all too trigger happy, the American soldier-commissars understood the difference between prudence and disloyalty. Conflicts between American and Soviet troops were all too common.
Meanwhile, Timoshenko ordered Patton to commit all of his forces to securing the lines of communication to Leningrad.
At the cost of half of his tanks and armored fighting vehicles, and nearly two-thirds of available aircraft, the ongoing counteroffensive forced Guderian to cancel his attack on Leningrad, and regroup for a second attack in late February. In two weeks of brutal fighting, 200,000 Soviet and 55,000 American soldiers had been killed or captured. Army Group North faced similar casualties, with official Wehrmacht figures concluding that 205,000 soldiers had been killed or captured.
…The Second Battle of Leningrad could only serve as a delaying action. Under Stavka's directive, the city would have to prepare for further siege. Most of Timoshenko's mobile forces were withdrawn to Veliky Novgorod after 27 February, when Army Group North resumed the attack on the city. Others continued to shield the ice road over Lake Luga. But while Army Group North had prevailed tactically, the cost of victory in both men and materiel was so staggering that the OKW suspended all plans to take the city directly. Instead, they would strangle the city into submission by siege.
The battle demonstrated the serious problems of service cooperation between American and Soviet forces. In the aftermath, the American and Soviet governments finally reached a preliminary agreement establishing the Unified Armed Forces of the Communist International. A Combined Stavka was formed from the senior leaders of both services.
Within the RKKA, the movement to do away with or reform the political officers and the dual command structure was gaining traction. It became clear even to Stalin that further success in military cooperation with the WFRA would depend on it. American soldiers would not stand for such brutal discipline or busybodying interference.
The battle had also revealed the inadequacies of American combat doctrine. American leaders and the general staff had not been properly prepared for battle on the scale of the Soviet theater. And as 1941 wore on, and more units formed on the front lines, the existing systems of command control were sorely tested.
Additionally, American forces in the field learned the hard way what inadequate infantry support capabilities can mean for tank units. While assault guns were effective on both attack and defense, the successes of the German PzKfpw Ausf. F proved that it was highly desirable for tanks to have both capabilities as well.
While the American Military Revolutionary Committee had initially felt that shipping the considerably heavier T-5 "Paul Bunyan" heavy tank to the Soviet theater was not worth the cost, it had now re-evaluated that position. A new variant design was ordered, putting the heavy tank on a diet to serve as an ersatz medium tank. Armed with the same 77mm gun as the SA-77 assault gun, the T-5 tank had dramatically better HE capabilities as well as a significant increase in tank killing power.
(1) The term "officer" is disfavored as a bourgeois relic. Leader is the preferred nomenclature for military officers. In American German, it is typically translated as "leiter" rather than the more usual "fuehrer" thanks to the negative connotations imparted to the word thanks to Nazism.
Excerpts from Ernesto Guevara, Revolutionary War Doctrine in the Second World War, (Lexington, KY: Hans Kahle Military Academy Press, 1979)
After six years of refinement, revolutionary war doctrine would face its final test. The fate of hundreds of millions of workers would hang in the balance.
It is important to emphasize to the layman that revolutionary war doctrine was not the product of any singular genius. Nor was it limited to any geographic locality. While its theory and praxis are often heavily tied to the legacy of George Patton, David Eisenhower, Harry Haywood and James Doolittle, its development even before the Red May Revolution involved the work of hundreds of soldiers, some prominent and others obscure.
In spite of the contributions that Soviet military officers made, it had fallen out of favor within the Soviet military establishment. A cadre of conservative military men had been favored by Stalin's clique over men like Frunze and Tukhachevsky, who were stuck theorizing how to refight the Great War. Consequently, the great insights of maneuver war, deep battle and defense in depth had only penetrated skin deep within the RKKA before Mikhail Frunze's rehabilitation.
In the UASR, it was the guiding doctrine of the WFRA. And with the beginning of mass deployment to the Soviet Union, its practitioners finally had the chance to test their doctrine against a peer adversary.
The WFRA's organization emphasized the corps as the focal point of operations. A corps would act as a coherent combined arms unit, uniting armor, infantry, artillery, and aviation. A mechanized corps deployed to the Soviet theater in 1940 would typically contain three divisions—one armored, two mechanized infantry—supported by an independent aviation brigade, a corps artillery brigade, two independent assault gun regiments, a pathfinder regiment and an antiaircraft regiment. Mechanized infantry and armored divisions were quite similar in internal organization. Each was composed of four maneuver regiments, supported by an artillery regiment, assault gun, engineer, signals and anti-aircraft battalions, plus logistical support units.
A mechanized infantry division would have three mechanized infantry regiments, each with its own company of assault guns, plus a tank regiment. An armored division would have two each of mechanized infantry and tank regiments. Under Frunze's direction as the Soviet Chief of the General Staff, the RKKA had begun to adapt this organizational form, though by the beginning of Operation Teutonic very few units had completed reorganization (notably, Rokossovsky's 9th Mechanized Corps). By comparison, the bulk of Soviet armored formations were tank heavy and inflexible. The lack of infantry and artillery support made them vulnerable on the defensive.
All support units were fully motorized in this schema, and a few elite units were adopting fully mechanized self-propelled artillery upon deployment. The A-4 "Mother Jones" self-propelled howitzer and the SA-77 "Hammer" assault gun shared the chassis, running gear and engine of the T-4 "John Henry" tank, simplifying logistics. Most light motorized functions were accomplished by variants of the GPV-5 light truck (commonly known to redfists as the "jeep").
Corps aviation brigades typically consisted of two tactical aviation regiments, plus ground support and logistics units. Each tactical regiment would operate a mix of fighter and ground attack aircraft, normally two squadrons of each. In 1940, they were typically equipped with A-14 "Shillelagh" ground attackers and either F-34 "Belladonna" or F-35 "Yeoman" fighters, though some were deployed with the older F-28 "Burro". At full strength, each squadron typically had twelve attack aircraft or fifteen fighters, with between fifteen and eighteen crews.
On the offensive, the mechanized corps would function as cohesive manipular unit. Each division or support brigade, like a finger, could probe for weakness independently, or the whole unit could close into a tight fist. A typical offensive operation would begin with corps aviation striking in depth along the axis of advance. Ground attackers would strike the logistical backbone of the opponent. The special warfare units would penetrate behind enemy lines, often by parachute. From there, they would coordinate with partisans, integrating them into the corps commander's battle plan, strike sensitive rear echelon targets, and gather intelligence.
Assault guns supported by combat engineers would break through defensive works if necessary. Armor and mechanized infantry would follow through these schwerpunkt, making rapid dagger thrusts through into the enemy rear, containing enemy strength pockets. Isolated tanks would be attacked by airpower and assault guns acting in a tank destroyer role.
Enemy counterattacks would be resolved as necessary, typically by bringing the headquarters' reserve tank regiment into action. The corps commander needed to balance the overall operations plan with the dictates of the rapidly evolving battlefield. As Patton emphasized in his 1937 monograph On Revolutionary War, "the democratic military's strength is preserving the initiative of subordinate units in action. Like the Party, the revolutionary army operates under the regime of democratic centralism. Thus it is imperative that the commanding council avoid the excessive interference in the operation of subordinate units. The corps is the center of operation planning: its command must give clear directives to the division headquarters. The division headquarters must have the flexibility to respond to evolving battlefield conditions to fulfill those directives."
This pattern continues down the chain of command, all the way to the squad and fireteam. While no military system is perfect, the chief strength of the revolutionary doctrine, aside from its unique appreciation for the subversion of enemy populations and state power, is the flexibility it grants to subordinate units. While some units may underperform under their own initiative, it also prevents the whole unit from marching to the wrong orders based on the mistaken assumptions of its commander. It also presents an revolutionary pressure on the democratic command hierarchy: leaders(1) can develop flexibility and creativity early on in their careers. Poor leaders can be weeded out from the command echelon early, whereas in other systems such a leader who is proficient at following the rigid dictates of their superiors may rise to a position well above their level of competence at actually leading soldiers in combat.
…There is a basic level of offensive bias to revolutionary war doctrine, which left the WFRA leadership off-balance in the opening phases of the Second World War. The military had expected the primary theater of action to be against the British Empire. Patton himself had led the team that developed Case Comwell and Case Bonaparte; the series of master operational war plans against Great Britain. Under Case Cromwell, upon the beginning of hostilities, mechanized forces would invade Canada across the St. Laurence River and from the northern Great Plains. Naval militia and WFRN Great Lakes units would support further exploit operations into Ontario and Manitoba.
As British military exercises concluded, the combined Imperial North American forces had no hope of repelling an American invasion of Canada. The succeeding case, Bonaparte, detailed efforts by the WFRN to wrest control of the Atlantic from the Royal Navy while deflecting efforts by the Imperial Japanese Navy to strike at more far flung American territories such as Alaska or Hawaii. Upon defeating the Royal Navy via a struggle of attrition, Comintern forces in the Western Hemisphere would begin to evict all imperialist presence in the hemisphere.
The Revolutionary Navy would sit astride the vast supply lines where the lifeblood of the British Empire flowed from the colonies into the imperial center. The Royal Navy would now be forced into engaging the WFRN in decisive battle, and it would do so from a position of weakness assured by American material superiority. The alternative was being choked into submission.
With the Royal Navy annihilated, the Comintern would negotiate terms of surrender. The Stavka envisioned nothing less than ceding all of Britain's colonies to the Comintern, who would establish revolutionary governments led by native communist parties and left-wing nationalists. A collapse to internal revolution was considered inevitable after such a decisive blow to the establishment: the Comintern would encourage this through the benevolent conduct in the war and the peace settlement.
Needless to say, this operational planning was mostly useless for the current task. While the naval strategy for convoy security proved as useful against German submarines and cruisers as British ones, much of the campaign planning was ad hoc.
…The winter campaign began in mid-December. Army Group Center had reported its exhaustion to the OKW, and for once, Hitler accepted his commander's prognosis. It had achieved its operational objectives. While Center dug in to winter in the area surrounding Smolensk, Army Group North had earned the Führer's displeasure. Leningrad remained untaken, a symbol of defiance to Nazi destiny. Forgoing military prudence, Hitler ordered a redoubling of efforts.
Guderian gave his opponents little time to breathe. While he strongly protested against beginning military operations amidst freezing winter storms, he was satisfied that his Panzer forces were for the time being given adequate logistical support. The Baltic states had not been subject to the scorched earth tactics that the rest of Nazi conquests had, enabling nearly unhindered rail transit to the front line. Consequently, Guderian was able to replace his lost tanks and mechanized equipment in more favorable conditions. The new PzKpfw III Ausf. F, with the 7.5 cm KwK 40 L/43 gun, was being equipped to his best units, albeit in small quantities. Based on the painful lessons learned at the hands of American mechanized forces, Guderian increased the number of StuG III assault guns, particularly in his Panzergrenadier units.
Meanwhile, Patton was busy negotiating the perils of forming a unified Comintern armed forces. Foreign Secretary Browder had practically taken up residence in Moscow on this matter. Stalin had been enthusiastic about the idea in theory. But he continued to frustrate the practice by insisting on a secondary role for American contingents, which would in effect relegate American troops to an auxiliary role in a Soviet led army.
As a token of this experiment, the American First Army would be integrated into the Leningrad Front hierarchy. Patton found it hard to work with Timoshenko. While he respected the old-fashioned military man, he found their two schools of military though to be irreconcilable. And while Timoshenko was impressed by Patton's revolutionary zeal and his organizational aptitude, he found him too adventurous, almost reckless. It would take many long months of conflict for the two to form an effective working relationship.
Patton had counseled a pre-emptive counterattack. In his previous clashes with Guderian, he felt he had soused out the 4th Panzer Army's weaknesses, which he believed he could effectively exploit on the offensive in spite of having fewer men and tanks available. He argued vehemently that they needed to dictate the terms of the engagement, or else "that old rascal," his preferred epithet for Guderian, would do the same to the defenders of Leningrad.
While it wasn't apparent in their correspondence, Timoshenko knew this. Allowing Guderian to resume the offensive would place his troops in a difficult position, and it would be unlikely that they could stop Army Group North from sieging Leningrad. Where he parted company with Patton was the idea that his mechanized forces available to him, even the much vaunted First Army, could deflect the Germans from their course. He was learning the ways of the modern battlefield. If they had been able to strike a few weeks earlier, Patton might have succeeded. But Army Group North had too much time to consolidate its position. The foot-mobile infantry and horse-drawn artillery had arrived in force. They had more than enough anti-tank guns and artillery to frustrate offensive operations.
Timoshenko argued he needed those tanks to be held in reserve to safeguard the city. And since he ultimately had Stalin's trust, it did not ultimately matter who was supported by military science.
…The offensive began in the early hours of 5 January 1941. Panzergrenadiers attacked the fortified positions of the Soviet 23rd Army. The day was cold and clear, and the poorly supplied Soviet troops resisted bitterly. But they faced simultaneous attack from the air and the ground. They could not prevent Guderian's forces from opening deep gashes in the front lines. Guderian's Panzers began large scything cuts towards Leningrad and Veliky Novgorod.
Timoshenko felt vindicated in his assessment. With some cajoling, he convinced Patton to agree to divide his forces, detaching the V Mechanized Corps and the VII Army Corps, along with the Soviet 17th Mechanized Corps, to the operational command of the newly raised 2nd Tank Army under General-Colonel Georgy Zhukov. The two brash, oft cantankerous generals would sit at the fulcrum of Timoshenko's defensive plans.
Timoshenko had arrayed his forces with a deliberate eye towards Tukhachevsky's defense-in-depth, with successive lines of entrenched infantry, supported by anti-tank and field guns. The approaches to the Leningrad tactical zone were heavily mined, serving to funnel enemy forces into optimal kill zones. German spearheads would be blunted by the successive nets of resistance. In the rear, mechanized and aviation forces lay ready to begin counterattacks, both to destroy enemy spearheads and if possible begin further exploit operations.
While the theory was sound, the practice was heavily compromised. While Timoshenko displayed the vigor of a much younger man in organizing his forces for the defense of Leningrad, the men and materiel to mount a proper defense of the city were simply not available. The infantry front line consisted primarily of freshly raised conscripts, inadequately trained for the task at hand. The local militsiya had been pressed into a military role to fill the gap.
On paper, the 30 infantry divisions attached to the Leningrad Front presented a formidable obstacle. But after six months of hard fighting, only the six American motorized divisions were above half strength. All were hindered by shortages of fuel, spare parts, and ammunition. The army in the field still operated large forces of legacy equipment that was not STANAG compliant. Perhaps a fifth of the artillery pieces in the Front were all but useless, having since exhausted their ammunition reserves. And since further production had been discontinued to concentrate efforts on standardized equipment, they could serve only as a source of cannibalized spare parts and scrap metal.
…German troops, though exhausted from the long campaign and harsh winter conditions, had prevailed. After three days of fighting, the Soviet defense lines were collapsing along the front. Guderian, a Prussian officer through and through, attempted to encircle the routing rifle corps and engage in a battle of annihilation. But Zhukov's tanks struck like a sledgehammer on the approaches to the city. The encirclements collapsed amidst mass tank warfare.
But it was clear the Germans were winning the battle of attrition. On 10 January, the Leningrad party chair Sergei Kirov finally secured permission from Sovnarkom to begin final evacuation of the city. The great city, already greatly emptied after the initial German rush in the fall, would be emptied of all but critical personnel. Only troops, war industry workers and basic infrastructure would remain behind.
Stavka delivered its new orders to the Leningrad Front: hold the line at any price long enough to complete evacuation of the city. It had been deemed critical to the war effort to preserve a moral victory here at the darkest hour following the invasion.
So Timoshenko pressed the NKVD into service. Order would be preserved, both among soldiers and civilians, regardless of the brutality needed. American troops, particularly the soldier-commissars, would preserve discipline and morale.
This was not well received within the American expeditionary forces. In general, American troops refused the order to summarily execute those guilty of cowardice or "desertion": in those dark days, these charges were applied indiscriminately, often against soldiers making wise tactical retreats. While the NKVD's Main Directorate of State Security was filled with military novices and party fanatics all too trigger happy, the American soldier-commissars understood the difference between prudence and disloyalty. Conflicts between American and Soviet troops were all too common.
Meanwhile, Timoshenko ordered Patton to commit all of his forces to securing the lines of communication to Leningrad.
At the cost of half of his tanks and armored fighting vehicles, and nearly two-thirds of available aircraft, the ongoing counteroffensive forced Guderian to cancel his attack on Leningrad, and regroup for a second attack in late February. In two weeks of brutal fighting, 200,000 Soviet and 55,000 American soldiers had been killed or captured. Army Group North faced similar casualties, with official Wehrmacht figures concluding that 205,000 soldiers had been killed or captured.
…The Second Battle of Leningrad could only serve as a delaying action. Under Stavka's directive, the city would have to prepare for further siege. Most of Timoshenko's mobile forces were withdrawn to Veliky Novgorod after 27 February, when Army Group North resumed the attack on the city. Others continued to shield the ice road over Lake Luga. But while Army Group North had prevailed tactically, the cost of victory in both men and materiel was so staggering that the OKW suspended all plans to take the city directly. Instead, they would strangle the city into submission by siege.
The battle demonstrated the serious problems of service cooperation between American and Soviet forces. In the aftermath, the American and Soviet governments finally reached a preliminary agreement establishing the Unified Armed Forces of the Communist International. A Combined Stavka was formed from the senior leaders of both services.
Within the RKKA, the movement to do away with or reform the political officers and the dual command structure was gaining traction. It became clear even to Stalin that further success in military cooperation with the WFRA would depend on it. American soldiers would not stand for such brutal discipline or busybodying interference.
The battle had also revealed the inadequacies of American combat doctrine. American leaders and the general staff had not been properly prepared for battle on the scale of the Soviet theater. And as 1941 wore on, and more units formed on the front lines, the existing systems of command control were sorely tested.
Additionally, American forces in the field learned the hard way what inadequate infantry support capabilities can mean for tank units. While assault guns were effective on both attack and defense, the successes of the German PzKfpw Ausf. F proved that it was highly desirable for tanks to have both capabilities as well.
While the American Military Revolutionary Committee had initially felt that shipping the considerably heavier T-5 "Paul Bunyan" heavy tank to the Soviet theater was not worth the cost, it had now re-evaluated that position. A new variant design was ordered, putting the heavy tank on a diet to serve as an ersatz medium tank. Armed with the same 77mm gun as the SA-77 assault gun, the T-5 tank had dramatically better HE capabilities as well as a significant increase in tank killing power.
(1) The term "officer" is disfavored as a bourgeois relic. Leader is the preferred nomenclature for military officers. In American German, it is typically translated as "leiter" rather than the more usual "fuehrer" thanks to the negative connotations imparted to the word thanks to Nazism.
When I read this passage, I wondered anew at the existence of an Air Force in the UASR military as a separate, consolidated service. OTL the USAF and its independent-service minded Army precursors rather greatly distorted the overall balance of air missions in favor of the doctrine of strategic bombing; we see also the same thing happening to the RAF in the interwar and WWII era as well. It would seem that to justify the existence of an Air Force as an independent service that its officers had to come up with a claim that they could win a war on their own, this, in their theory, by the unstoppable devastation that they believed air power could inflict.
If you take that doctrine away in its sweeping claim to be an alternative to ground forces, and restrict it to focus on using what devastation it can bring to bear on the actual enemy forces, along with numerous other missions many of which are vital and great multipliers of army force but rather inglorious (such as airlift), then the claim that the flyboys like to make that their service should be independent seems far weaker.
To be sure there is still something to be said for military aircraft having their own subdivision within the Army; piloting airplanes is a specialized skill and the manner in which aircraft contribute to front-line struggles has a very different style than ground troops, even lumping together such diverse types as cavalry, infantry and artillery--different as they are, they move over the same roads and terrain and can either stand to hold ground or attempt to advance; aircraft cannot hold still, nor can they "dig in;" they require bases some distance back from the fray; vice versa they are not held up at a given front line, but can range behind it. It does seem to me air combat is a different sort of thing than ground combat and therefore it would be well, especially given the "manipular" empowerment the ATL Red American doctrines favor, if directives are given to air fighters by other air fighters who understand the realities. Putting an artillery or even cavalry officer in charge of these would probably lead to waste and disaster.
But the reasoning behind having a separate service, rather than merely being seen as a subdivision of the Army, is not there.
Agreed. By necessity, the Army Air Force is a sort of special-case in the larger Army. While units are integrated into the tactical command structure of the ground forces similar to Soviet frontal aviation, you are very correct that air combat is dramatically different.
High ranking officers will by necessity have to be proficient in combined arms operations. And they'll have to rely on aviation commanders in their assessments.
Well, among other things
IIRC one of the big problems OTL is that German rail gauge and Soviet rail gauge weren't compatible, forcing the Germans to rebuild track inch by inch that could work with their existing rolling stock. This was as much of a logistical problem, even with available rail lines and ties assuming a lack of scorched earth tactics, as the actual destruction of infrastructure was.
Interesting update. Nice to learn a bit more about American doctrine. Seems they're having a bit of trouble adjusting after expecting to fight the British for so long.
Does the UASR actually have strategic bombers? You mentioned how initially they were adverse to using them and that the British were ahead (probably for that reason - I imagine the Area Bombing Directive goes ahead and probably gets criticised by the UASR).
Does the UASR actually have strategic bombers? You mentioned how initially they were adverse to using them and that the British were ahead (probably for that reason - I imagine the Area Bombing Directive goes ahead and probably gets criticised by the UASR).
A nice update on the progress of WWII. I do think that this makes sense, especially with the confusion of having to scrap all previously thought most accurate war plans against Britain (which seem like they could actually have resulted in a Red victory in the war for those alternate history alternatehistory.com members).
This is a very neat update on the soviet theatre. However I wonder what role will Integralist Brazil play on the WWII as, from the revisions, it seemed that Brazil and Germany got very cozy. Also the in-verse comments from AH chat board seem to suggest that Brazil did not became an important theatre for the Comintern forces.
While Brazil is a lot less industrialized than the UASR, I think that it has the potential to become a military force to be reckoned with, especially considering the vast natural resources Brazil has at its disposal. While keeping India would ensure the FBU survival into the 21st century, I think that preserving Integralist Brazil into the 50s would give the appearance of balance between capitalism and communism. This is because having a Brazilian theatre in the war would over-stretch Comintern resources because Brazil is a very big country and would inevitably kill any economy, regardless of the ideology behind it.
I keep thinking that Brazil would be ITTL version of Vietnam (despite the revisions suggesting Indochina is the alternate Vietnam) because it is a very resource-rich territory. While the communist forces would win the proxy Brazilian civil war, I think would be one of those alluded pyrrhic victories for the reds and still be considered a failure.
The proxy war might even precipitate a vast anti-war movement in the UASR, like Vietnam did OTL, but more powerful and give rise to the whole idea that it's the citizens, not the UASR, who travel to war-torn regions to fight for communism that Jello alluded to. Plus the process of modernizing Brazil would also play a major factor in the green revolution, especially if the impact on the Amazon would be very bad.
While Brazil is a lot less industrialized than the UASR, I think that it has the potential to become a military force to be reckoned with, especially considering the vast natural resources Brazil has at its disposal. While keeping India would ensure the FBU survival into the 21st century, I think that preserving Integralist Brazil into the 50s would give the appearance of balance between capitalism and communism. This is because having a Brazilian theatre in the war would over-stretch Comintern resources because Brazil is a very big country and would inevitably kill any economy, regardless of the ideology behind it.
I keep thinking that Brazil would be ITTL version of Vietnam (despite the revisions suggesting Indochina is the alternate Vietnam) because it is a very resource-rich territory. While the communist forces would win the proxy Brazilian civil war, I think would be one of those alluded pyrrhic victories for the reds and still be considered a failure.
The proxy war might even precipitate a vast anti-war movement in the UASR, like Vietnam did OTL, but more powerful and give rise to the whole idea that it's the citizens, not the UASR, who travel to war-torn regions to fight for communism that Jello alluded to. Plus the process of modernizing Brazil would also play a major factor in the green revolution, especially if the impact on the Amazon would be very bad.
The non-communist nations in South America were Brazil, one of the Guays, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador if memory serves.
That general area of South America really.
That general area of South America really.
Who is the head of the individual branches of the Army, Navy, and Air Force? I know Martin Abern leads the People’s Secretariat for Defense
department (making him a kind of chief of staff who leads all three branches) but it's said each branch has a leader but I can't find out who they are? I'm sorry if I missed it.
department (making him a kind of chief of staff who leads all three branches) but it's said each branch has a leader but I can't find out who they are? I'm sorry if I missed it.
Given the capital flight from America and Brazil and a number of other neighboring South American countries remaining capitalist and turning fascist, I think that Brazil could undergo quite a bit of industrialization in the wake of capitalists fleeing from the Communist revolutions in the Americas and with the support of Germany, Japan, Italy, and other assorted capitalist nations. Meanwhile, Mexico is mentioned as leading the effort to fight Brazil and its partners while the Soviets and Americans focus on the GIJ trinity, so I presume that the Comintern would try to help the Latin American communists industrialize as much as possible.This is a very neat update on the soviet theatre. However I wonder what role will Integralist Brazil play on the WWII as, from the revisions, it seemed that Brazil and Germany got very cozy. Also the in-verse comments from AH chat board seem to suggest that Brazil did not became an important theatre for the Comintern forces.
While Brazil is a lot less industrialized than the UASR, I think that it has the potential to become a military force to be reckoned with, especially considering the vast natural resources Brazil has at its disposal. While keeping India would ensure the FBU survival into the 21st century, I think that preserving Integralist Brazil into the 50s would give the appearance of balance between capitalism and communism. This is because having a Brazilian theatre in the war would over-stretch Comintern resources because Brazil is a very big country and would inevitably kill any economy, regardless of the ideology behind it.
I keep thinking that Brazil would be ITTL version of Vietnam (despite the revisions suggesting Indochina is the alternate Vietnam) because it is a very resource-rich territory. While the communist forces would win the proxy Brazilian civil war, I think would be one of those alluded pyrrhic victories for the reds and still be considered a failure.
The proxy war might even precipitate a vast anti-war movement in the UASR, like Vietnam did OTL, but more powerful and give rise to the whole idea that it's the citizens, not the UASR, who travel to war-torn regions to fight for communism that Jello alluded to. Plus the process of modernizing Brazil would also play a major factor in the green revolution, especially if the impact on the Amazon would be very bad.
I also found the list of Fascist Latin American nations: Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela (this is quite the large chunk of South America's population, Brazil alone matches the rest of the continent). Obviously they're all going to be satellites of Brazil due to the simple fact that Brazil has more than three times the population of its allies and sufficient base industrial capacity before any potential ATL alterations to build its own battleships.
The difficulty with invading Brazil of course, is that a lot of its flanks are well defended by Jungle and/or Highlands that would be functionally impervious to enemy attack and its lack of import relative to the Axis big three means that it could very well see 1946 without one boot setting foot in Rio di Janerio. Argentina, being cut off from most of the other Latin Socialist nations and having a pretty open northern border; is probably going to get a very raw deal, especially since basically its entire northern flank is bordered by enemies. I predict Argentina to likely face the prospect of large swathes of its country being overrun. Simply put, the Argentines are sadly; incredibly doomed. Chile is quite a defensible country and is likely to hold out better than Argentina. Other than Argentina, Colombia seems to be a likely target to try and come in striking distance of the Panama canal and to attempt to close any land routes to North America. Once these are dealt with, the rest can be dealt with at their leisure.
As for Brazil's post-war fate, I had already suggested that due to geographical difficulties and surrendering to the French and British first (who have the Guyana as a toehold in the region), Brazil remains a capitalist nation that re-establishes the Imperial throne to distance itself away from the fascist republic. Venezuela could also be a capitalist state if nothing more than for a bit of alternate historical irony.
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