10/43-12/43
A Puppet Back on It’s Strings, October 1943
The IJA returned to the city of Hsinking and restored their puppet government of Manchukuo in October 1943. The last Qing Emperor, Puyi, resumed his rule of the territory in a move that upset the Chinese. To an outsider, it appeared that little had changed during the three years of Soviet occupation.
But Japan had changed since the beginning of the war, and with the new civilian government gaining more support every day, the new Manchukuo was sure to change as well. The Japanese leadership was divided on how much freedom to give the Manchus, whether to allow them democracy or if this would just see them demand full independence. Japan still sought Manchurian resources, especially iron, which they were dependent on imports for and would only be able to get at a higher price from the international market. While Prime Minister Saito was firm on not granting the Army full control of the state, which he feared would eventually revert back to the orderless militarism of the 1930s, beyond that there was little agreement in Tokyo. Local democracy would eventually make it to Manchukuo in 1948, but these elected officials were still to be kept under Tokyo’s authority.
Before Japan could regain control of the industry in Manchukuo, they would first have to deal with another aspect of Stalin’s occupation: the local communist movement. From the moment Vatutin’s army had overrun the first town they found in Manchukuo, the Soviets had intended to eventually set up a Manchurian SSR. Local communists, as well as important people from other parts of the Soviet Union and Communist-held China, had been given control of farms, factories and other industrial establishments which had been seized from their previous Japanese owners. Now that the Red Army had been pushed north, with Vatutin recalled to Moscow after Stalin’s patience with him wore out, and his incompetent successor Budyonny on the retreat, the Japanese settlers wanted their factories back. Communism had proven popular with a significant fraction of the people of Manchukuo, but for Japanese imperialists it was unacceptable, and the IJA was forced to fight a large communist insurgency, backed by the USSR and remnants of the CCP.
The First of the Axis to Fall, November 1943
Pressure on the Western Front had forced the German High Command to prioritise the defence of Germany over their many occupied territories, and after the fall of Belgrade Schorner’s Army Group D was in a sorry state. In order to prevent the Italians from liberating Romania, or cutting the routes from Turkey that supplied Germany with chromium, the defence of the Southern Front was increasingly under the control of Bulgarian and Hungarian forces, who although they were well equipped with Soviet weapons, tended to be reluctant to do anything more than defend their own lands.
In this Graziani saw a major opportunity, a chance to defeat at least one of Hitler’s smaller allies and possibly end the war in the Balkans for good. In the autumn, Graziani decided that Bulgaria would be the better target, as a capture of Varna would force the Axis to reroute all of their trade routes through the Black Sea (which would make them vulnerable to Allied bombing) or all the way around it. Furthermore, the capture of Istanbul would provide a good starting point for the long-discussed plans to liberate Turkey.
Bulgaria itself proved not too difficult to knock out of the war. The front line had been near Sofia for much of 1943, and when the city was occupied Tsar Boris III offered to surrender. The terms that the Italians offered (with approval from the other major Allied leaders) were extremely lenient, allowing the Bulgarians to keep all their gains from the war outside of pre-war Turkey and only requiring the Bulgarian armies to resist Axis armies should the borders of Bulgaria be crossed. Mussolini later explained that he allowed Bulgaria to keep ex-Yugoslav Macedonia in the hopes of gaining a loyal ally, while the Chetniks that were to eventually run the government in Belgrade had maintained little influence in the region.
Mussolini hoped to build on the success in Bulgaria by ordering offensives towards Istanbul and Bucharest. With the Bulgarian Army posing no more of an obstacle, Istanbul was quickly reached by Italian motorised divisions, although a stubborn defence by the German occupation force ensured that the city would not fall until January 1944, by which time it had been badly damaged in costly urban fighting. Further north, the crossing of the Danube was met with only limited resistance, and it looked likely that Bucharest would fall, until Stalin grew concerned that the Allies were getting much too close to the core of the USSR. Abandoning his long-standing policy of equipping the Germans but otherwise sending only small forces west, he unleashed an entire Guards Tank Army, along with a considerable infantry force, against the Italians. Graziani’s force was quickly overwhelmed and thrown back across the river, while the Allies were forced to deal with a new reality: the Red Army had arrived.
Wunderwaffen, December 1943
Towards the end of 1943, the Axis began fielding a series of advanced weapons that Hitler termed ‘wonder weapons’ due to his belief that they were so superior to anything the Allies could field that they would singlehandedly turn the tide of the war. Soviet engineers and industrialists had had a part in the design and manufacturing of these weapons since 1941, which had seen the acceleration of designs that would not have been possible before late 1944 otherwise.
The first of the Wunderwaffen to be deployed was the Fi 103 unguided missile (known as a V1 to OTLers). With a range of around 250km and a speed comparable to that of most fighters currently being used, the Fi 103 was a rather cost-effective substitute for either bombers or massive artillery pieces like Gustav or Dora, especially in light of the near-complete destruction of the Luftwaffe by the time of its introduction. Although Allied pilots did manage to intercept a considerable number of Fi 103s, the barrage of them that were fired at the French northeastern industries would only be ended with the capture of factories that made them or the destruction of launch sites, while Stalin found little use for them (targets in Japan being well out of range from Vladivostock) and produced only very few.
Much more important in the air war was the Me 262 turbojet fighter. Able to fly much faster than any Allied fighters, the Me 262 proved difficult to intercept and lethal to pilots unfortunate enough to fight it. German use of the Me 262 was brief, as production facilities in the Rhineland were being bombed more and more heavily as the frontline approached, but Soviet reporters sent detailed messages back to Moscow, reporting on the aircraft’s strengths and vulnerabilities. Stalin was so pleased with the aircraft that he instructed MiG to not only begin production of the Me 262 (as the MiG-262) but to also develop a much more advanced jet fighter, which he wanted ready for serial production by July 1945.
In December 1943, possibly the most fearsome design of them all entered front line service: the Panzer VI “Wolf” heavy tank. Having started out as a joint German-Soviet design based off the KV-1 and T-34, the Wolf had grown considerably to the point where it resembled a greatly enlarged T-34 with a KV-1’s armour and a massive 128mm gun that could take out even the formidable M26 Pershing at incredibly long range, while retaining the T-34’s ease of production. The Wehrmacht was the first to deploy Wolves in battle in the north of Holland, where they quickly became feared, with one British soldier remarking “at least the bloody Tiger breaks down if you give it a while”.
Stalin wasted no time in ensuring that a Soviet variant of the Wolf was brought into use. Known to the Soviets as the T-6 and the Allies occasionally as the Bear, the Soviet variant of the Wolf initially carried the 122mm gun that was much more common in the USSR than the German 128, although the superiority of the German gun eventually saw its production in the USSR as well. Guards units were given the first Wolves in January 1944, and throughout that year the massive Wolf saw production numbers quickly pass hundreds of tanks every month.
- BNC
The IJA returned to the city of Hsinking and restored their puppet government of Manchukuo in October 1943. The last Qing Emperor, Puyi, resumed his rule of the territory in a move that upset the Chinese. To an outsider, it appeared that little had changed during the three years of Soviet occupation.
But Japan had changed since the beginning of the war, and with the new civilian government gaining more support every day, the new Manchukuo was sure to change as well. The Japanese leadership was divided on how much freedom to give the Manchus, whether to allow them democracy or if this would just see them demand full independence. Japan still sought Manchurian resources, especially iron, which they were dependent on imports for and would only be able to get at a higher price from the international market. While Prime Minister Saito was firm on not granting the Army full control of the state, which he feared would eventually revert back to the orderless militarism of the 1930s, beyond that there was little agreement in Tokyo. Local democracy would eventually make it to Manchukuo in 1948, but these elected officials were still to be kept under Tokyo’s authority.
Before Japan could regain control of the industry in Manchukuo, they would first have to deal with another aspect of Stalin’s occupation: the local communist movement. From the moment Vatutin’s army had overrun the first town they found in Manchukuo, the Soviets had intended to eventually set up a Manchurian SSR. Local communists, as well as important people from other parts of the Soviet Union and Communist-held China, had been given control of farms, factories and other industrial establishments which had been seized from their previous Japanese owners. Now that the Red Army had been pushed north, with Vatutin recalled to Moscow after Stalin’s patience with him wore out, and his incompetent successor Budyonny on the retreat, the Japanese settlers wanted their factories back. Communism had proven popular with a significant fraction of the people of Manchukuo, but for Japanese imperialists it was unacceptable, and the IJA was forced to fight a large communist insurgency, backed by the USSR and remnants of the CCP.
The First of the Axis to Fall, November 1943
Pressure on the Western Front had forced the German High Command to prioritise the defence of Germany over their many occupied territories, and after the fall of Belgrade Schorner’s Army Group D was in a sorry state. In order to prevent the Italians from liberating Romania, or cutting the routes from Turkey that supplied Germany with chromium, the defence of the Southern Front was increasingly under the control of Bulgarian and Hungarian forces, who although they were well equipped with Soviet weapons, tended to be reluctant to do anything more than defend their own lands.
In this Graziani saw a major opportunity, a chance to defeat at least one of Hitler’s smaller allies and possibly end the war in the Balkans for good. In the autumn, Graziani decided that Bulgaria would be the better target, as a capture of Varna would force the Axis to reroute all of their trade routes through the Black Sea (which would make them vulnerable to Allied bombing) or all the way around it. Furthermore, the capture of Istanbul would provide a good starting point for the long-discussed plans to liberate Turkey.
Bulgaria itself proved not too difficult to knock out of the war. The front line had been near Sofia for much of 1943, and when the city was occupied Tsar Boris III offered to surrender. The terms that the Italians offered (with approval from the other major Allied leaders) were extremely lenient, allowing the Bulgarians to keep all their gains from the war outside of pre-war Turkey and only requiring the Bulgarian armies to resist Axis armies should the borders of Bulgaria be crossed. Mussolini later explained that he allowed Bulgaria to keep ex-Yugoslav Macedonia in the hopes of gaining a loyal ally, while the Chetniks that were to eventually run the government in Belgrade had maintained little influence in the region.
Mussolini hoped to build on the success in Bulgaria by ordering offensives towards Istanbul and Bucharest. With the Bulgarian Army posing no more of an obstacle, Istanbul was quickly reached by Italian motorised divisions, although a stubborn defence by the German occupation force ensured that the city would not fall until January 1944, by which time it had been badly damaged in costly urban fighting. Further north, the crossing of the Danube was met with only limited resistance, and it looked likely that Bucharest would fall, until Stalin grew concerned that the Allies were getting much too close to the core of the USSR. Abandoning his long-standing policy of equipping the Germans but otherwise sending only small forces west, he unleashed an entire Guards Tank Army, along with a considerable infantry force, against the Italians. Graziani’s force was quickly overwhelmed and thrown back across the river, while the Allies were forced to deal with a new reality: the Red Army had arrived.
Wunderwaffen, December 1943
Towards the end of 1943, the Axis began fielding a series of advanced weapons that Hitler termed ‘wonder weapons’ due to his belief that they were so superior to anything the Allies could field that they would singlehandedly turn the tide of the war. Soviet engineers and industrialists had had a part in the design and manufacturing of these weapons since 1941, which had seen the acceleration of designs that would not have been possible before late 1944 otherwise.
The first of the Wunderwaffen to be deployed was the Fi 103 unguided missile (known as a V1 to OTLers). With a range of around 250km and a speed comparable to that of most fighters currently being used, the Fi 103 was a rather cost-effective substitute for either bombers or massive artillery pieces like Gustav or Dora, especially in light of the near-complete destruction of the Luftwaffe by the time of its introduction. Although Allied pilots did manage to intercept a considerable number of Fi 103s, the barrage of them that were fired at the French northeastern industries would only be ended with the capture of factories that made them or the destruction of launch sites, while Stalin found little use for them (targets in Japan being well out of range from Vladivostock) and produced only very few.
Much more important in the air war was the Me 262 turbojet fighter. Able to fly much faster than any Allied fighters, the Me 262 proved difficult to intercept and lethal to pilots unfortunate enough to fight it. German use of the Me 262 was brief, as production facilities in the Rhineland were being bombed more and more heavily as the frontline approached, but Soviet reporters sent detailed messages back to Moscow, reporting on the aircraft’s strengths and vulnerabilities. Stalin was so pleased with the aircraft that he instructed MiG to not only begin production of the Me 262 (as the MiG-262) but to also develop a much more advanced jet fighter, which he wanted ready for serial production by July 1945.
In December 1943, possibly the most fearsome design of them all entered front line service: the Panzer VI “Wolf” heavy tank. Having started out as a joint German-Soviet design based off the KV-1 and T-34, the Wolf had grown considerably to the point where it resembled a greatly enlarged T-34 with a KV-1’s armour and a massive 128mm gun that could take out even the formidable M26 Pershing at incredibly long range, while retaining the T-34’s ease of production. The Wehrmacht was the first to deploy Wolves in battle in the north of Holland, where they quickly became feared, with one British soldier remarking “at least the bloody Tiger breaks down if you give it a while”.
Stalin wasted no time in ensuring that a Soviet variant of the Wolf was brought into use. Known to the Soviets as the T-6 and the Allies occasionally as the Bear, the Soviet variant of the Wolf initially carried the 122mm gun that was much more common in the USSR than the German 128, although the superiority of the German gun eventually saw its production in the USSR as well. Guards units were given the first Wolves in January 1944, and throughout that year the massive Wolf saw production numbers quickly pass hundreds of tanks every month.
- BNC