The Twin Vipers: A TL of the Berlin-Moscow Axis

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Ramontxo

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It was the British attack at Taranto at night that inspired Yamamoto's day attack at Pearl Harbour. While the Zero was a better and more agile fighter than (said) a Sea Hurricane it was certainly not faster than a Spitfire or even a Seafire. And of course the Swordfish pilots were trained for and in fact actually did night attacks. I don't see the FAA letting their Japan allies do this operation in their place. Anyway thanks for your work I am enjoying this a lot.
 
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It was the British attack at Taranto at night that inspired Yamamoto's day attack at Pearl Harbour. While the Zero was a better and more agile fighter than (said) a Sea Hurricane it was certainly not faster than a Spitfire or even a Seafire. And of course the Swordfish pilots were trained for and in fact actually did night attacks. I don't see the FAA letting their Japan allies do this operation in their place. Anyway thanks for your work I am enjoying this a lot.

No Taranto ITTL, but at the same time there's nothing stopping Yamamoto from thinking it up on his own.

Re the Zero, good catch on the speed (although the Seafire didn't exist yet so I'll leave that out of the discussion). The B5N is definitely a better plane than the Swordfish however and Japanese training is almost certainly as good as the British training was, and seeing as Wilhelmshaven is one of Germany's best defended areas it makes sense to send the best equipment possible (not to mention the Allies are up against much tougher opposition than in OTL, so Churchill's attitude by necessity is to take whatever he can get: the British papers can always hype up the sinking of the Graf Zeppelin in place of 'Japan did good' if need be.)

Thanks for your feedback mate!

- BNC
 
a thousand T-26 tanks and 500 I-153 fighters

Stalin’s too generous in this timeline. Even to counterattack the potential enemy, it’s kind of stupid to give the untrained peasants a thousand of tank and planes even it’s old model. And it’s also the propaganda material for nationalist Chinese when PLA uses Soviet tanks and planes run around China: “the communist is evils. When we expelled the Eastern devils out of our home, the communist lead another snake to our house.”
 
It was the British attack at Taranto at night that inspired Yamamoto's day attack at Pearl Harbour. While the Zero was a better and more agile fighter than (said) a Sea Hurricane it was certainly not faster than a Spitfire or even a Seafire. And of course the Swordfish pilots were trained for and in fact actually did night attacks. I don't see the FAA letting their Japan allies do this operation in their place. Anyway thanks for your work I am enjoying this a lot.

Not really the IJN has a fascination with surprise attacks ever since the Russo/Japanese war the attack on Taranto was simply proof of concept but IJN plans to strike PH existed long before then
 
Stalin’s too generous in this timeline. Even to counterattack the potential enemy, it’s kind of stupid to give the untrained peasants a thousand of tank and planes even it’s old model. And it’s also the propaganda material for nationalist Chinese when PLA uses Soviet tanks and planes run around China: “the communist is evils. When we expelled the Eastern devils out of our home, the communist lead another snake to our house.”

Is he really too generous? IOTL he seemed happy to give Germany practically everything they could ever possibly want (oil, grain, &c under the M-R pact), and was giving a ton of stuff to the Chinese and North Koreans after the war, so stingy isn't a word that I would use to describe him:

Wikipedia (Tanks in China) said:
In the early 1950s, the Soviet Union gave China 1,837 T-34-85 tanks. The T-34-85 tank also served with the North Koreans and Chinese during the Korean War. The 1954 Operations Research Office report of "Tank v Tank Combat in Korea" said there were 119 definite to possible tank v tank encounters in the Korean War, with US tanks knocked out by T-34s (includes categories of abandoned but repairable) was 38. The Chinese claimed that their T-34s destroyed a number of US tanks late in the war, as by this time most North Korean T-34s, estimated at a little over 400, had been destroyed or captured by November 1950.

Considering that the USSR probably had just as many spare T-26s in 1941 (at Barbarossa they had something like 20k tanks) as they did T-34s in 1950, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to me. The Communist Chinese Army wasn't all that different in 1940 and 1950 except in size and can still largely be described as "untrained peasants".

Re propaganda, Mao can easily spin it as "Stalin has chosen us to lead the way to progress in China, while he continues the fight against the eastern devils", and its not like the two sides are lacking in propaganda to throw at each other anyway. Next to being able to equip a Tank Corps, probably doesn't matter so much.

- BNC
 
In German case M-R pact benefits for both Soviet and the Reich, so I don’t think it counts. But in China and NK case, the Red Army has more than 60000 t34 after the war that more tank than any countries in the world and that just t34, so give them thousand or two is not surprised me. But this is 1941, when.... 20000 tanks, what is this, how? (Not joking I genuinely terrified when I found out the number, kind of underestimated the industrialized of Soviet Union) moving on next topic, nothing to see here.

“Can’t think of anything, you win this round but I will be back for the rematch.”
 
Here's the map of the front lines on the Western Front that I've been so far using:

1941 western front-com.JPG


- BNC
 
Interesting.

I think Stalin will sooner or later cut a deal with the Allies as they won't want to invade Soviet Union (a prepared and experienced Soviet Union) especially right after beating invading Germany which would already be extremely hard... And Stalin was always careful so he'll avoid threatening France and Britain at home, rather attacking their colonies. So, when Germany becomes too weak or unreliable or declares war on the USA Stalin will offer peace to Allies and make reasonable demands (keeping Finland and Bessarabia to ensure Soviet security, etc) and the Allies will have to accept.
 
Interesting.

I think Stalin will sooner or later cut a deal with the Allies as they won't want to invade Soviet Union (a prepared and experienced Soviet Union) especially right after beating invading Germany which would already be extremely hard... And Stalin was always careful so he'll avoid threatening France and Britain at home, rather attacking their colonies. So, when Germany becomes too weak or unreliable or declares war on the USA Stalin will offer peace to Allies and make reasonable demands (keeping Finland and Bessarabia to ensure Soviet security, etc) and the Allies will have to accept.

Will they though? Never underestimate the fear of communism.

Italy may or may not join the war eventually. More likely they decide to sneak in an invasion of Yugoslavia and/or Greece when no one is looking (and Britain et al probably just turn a blind eye since they have bigger fish to fry at the moment) then jump on whoever is losing when the tides turn (probably if/when the US joins).
 
The Allies may fear communism, but they're democracies and when their population and soldiers are tired from invading Germany (which would be much harder if Hitler doesn't have a second front and has Soviet material support and even Red Army support at the the end), telling them "Now we have to go through Eastern Europe and then Soviet Union proper, while they still have much of their reserves (and they would since no Barbarossa only periphery wars) and are prepared and experienced and with the horrible logistics of invading Russia". People in the West would be reluctant to die (or see their sons and husbands die) for that en masse, especially if Stalin publically offers a reasonable deal.
 
Italy may or may not join the war eventually. More likely they decide to sneak in an invasion of Yugoslavia and/or Greece when no one is looking (and Britain et al probably just turn a blind eye since they have bigger fish to fry at the moment) then jump on whoever is losing when the tides turn (probably if/when the US joins).

Yugoslavia is under Axis occupation, so Mussolini won't be invading that unless he joins the Allies. and Greece IOTL was mostly to prove that he is an equal to Hitler, so I really can't see him invading it here.

The Allies may fear communism, but they're democracies and when their population and soldiers are tired from invading Germany (which would be much harder if Hitler doesn't have a second front and has Soviet material support and even Red Army support at the the end), telling them "Now we have to go through Eastern Europe and then Soviet Union proper, while they still have much of their reserves (and they would since no Barbarossa only periphery wars) and are prepared and experienced and with the horrible logistics of invading Russia". People in the West would be reluctant to die (or see their sons and husbands die) for that en masse, especially if Stalin publically offers a reasonable deal.

The reasonable deal, IMO, is the hard part. IOTL at Yalta Stalin demanded, and got, everything east of Berlin, and was allowed to annex all of the stuff from the M-R pact. Because he was on their side and the Red Army occupied it, he got all of it.

Here - at least in Europe where the scenario can't change due to geography until Germany falls - he has been no less successful: he still occupies the Baltics, half of Poland, a third of Romania and half of Turkey. But unlike OTL, the Allies have been against him (with all the anti-Soviet propaganda that comes with it) since 1939, and giving up Eastern Europe at that point is a short step from saying "the Axis still kinda won", which Churchill at least won't accept. Then there's the Manchurian question: Manchuria can't go to the USSR without the Western Allies massively insulting China and Japan, who both believe it is theirs and have both contributed millions of men to fighting the communists (especially Japan, which has been in active battle against the Red Army since the beginning of the war). This 'slap in the face' mentality is exactly what led to Japan becoming militarist after WWI in the first place, and Japan is not going to tolerate another betrayal by the west.

To get Stalin to offer anything less than "USSR gets what it wants east of Warsaw", the Red Army has to be beaten in battle to some degree, and the skirmishes in the Middle East aren't going to suffice. Status quo ante (as in, 1938 borders) doesn't require a march to Moscow, but I'm not sure Stalin would be willing to offer it just because French, British and American troops got to Berlin.

What are conditions like for Soviet Jews? Has Stalin, influenced by his German "ally", launched an anti-Semitic purge?

More Jews have been removed from top positions and thousands have been deported to Siberia (Birobidzhan, not the gulags), as Stalin is a bit more paranoid of them than OTL due to the Nazi propaganda. Beyond that though, Stalin really doesn't have to do anything just because Hitler wants him to - the whole German Army (sans occupation forces) is on the Western Front and is no threat to the USSR, and his paranoia hasn't told him to do anything worse.

- BNC
 
Japan with the Allies ITTL made me realize something. WW2 in OTL, especially with the atomic bombings, made Japan and its people forever renounce war. Its military was disbanded with a self-defense force being allowed in the 1970s.

I don't know how far into the future this TL will go, but will this mean a more militaristic Japan after the war? Or possibly a Cold War between the Western world and Japan?
 
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7/41-8/41
Battle of the Yalu, July 1941

In the Far East, Stalin’s war with Japan had been stalled at the Yalu River since the autumn of 1940. General Vatutin’s efforts in the meantime had been directed towards securing Manchukuo to reduce the risk of pro-Japanese sabotage to the railroads and other essential elements of the Far Eastern Front’s logistics. By May 1941 the Red Army had a strong grip on Manchukuo, which meant that Vatutin was ready to launch the final stage of the war: evicting Japan from Korea.

The Japanese had expected the move since the fall of Harbin (when the bulk of the IJA had retreated towards Korea instead of the Red Army’s goal of Mukden), and had built a heavily fortified line on the Yalu that could rival the stronger defences on the Western Front. Now manned by nearly two million brave Japanese soldiers prepared to give their life for the Emperor, it was likely the biggest obstacle the Red Army was ever forced to fight in the whole war.

But what the Japanese had in bravery, the Soviets had in heavy equipment. Having lined up hundreds of Katyusha multiple rocket launchers along the length of the Yalu, Vatutin launched one of the greatest artillery bombardments in history to signal the beginning of the assault, which was backed up by three million Red Army soldiers, with KV-1 and T-34 tanks backing them up.

The Yalu line was breached in several places, and was abandoned as soon as it became clear that the line would not keep the Soviets out of Korea entirely. The Red Army pushed aside much of its initial opposition, and headed for Seoul. The IJA simply retreated into the mountains, hoping to make the Red Army overextend itself, while the Navy attacked any Red Army formation within range of a battleship’s guns.

The Japanese tactics caused the Red Army to suffer horrific losses as they had to dig out Japanese soldiers from every pass and cave in the mountains of northern Korea. Naval fire destroyed what were terrible roads to begin with, making resupply of the Soviet forces much more difficult than expected, and although Vatutin eventually entered Seoul, he had suffered horrific losses and had at best a Pyrrhic Victory. But in Japan, the fall of Seoul finally shook the country’s confidence in the militarists that had previously had a stranglehold on power, but now seemed to do nothing but disgrace themselves in battle every time they fought.

2nd Battle of Tianjin, August 1941

Following his return from Moscow, Mao felt that his position in China had improved considerably. Increasing numbers of Chinese peasants were supporting the Communists, in no small part due to promises of land reforms and other methods of winning over the hearts and minds of the population. Chiang had an ironclad grip over Sichuan and Chungking, and was popular in the regions once occupied by Japan, but the central region, where the fiercest battles had been waged in 1938 and 1939, was beginning to support the Communists.

Mao’s aim was to secure the north and centre of China, dividing Chiang’s support base in two while fifth columnists eroded his support in the devastated south. Although he continued to avoid open confrontation with the much larger Nationalist armies, he knew that Communist strength needed to be proven in battle. As he later justified, “A tiger must get into, and win, a fight every now and then, or people cease to fear him”.

From this plan came the Peking-Tianjin Operation. Mao chose the heavily populated northeast as it was the most distant from Chiang’s power base in Sichuan, and would thus be the least well-defended area in China. Furthermore, the Red Army controlled Manchukuo and had men less than 100km from Peking, and if the CCP’s forces could meet up with the Soviets, further aid from Moscow would have an easier time travelling through Peking than if it was to cross the inhospitable deserts of Xinjiang or Mongolia.

Unfortunately for Mao, a prominent communist major defected to the Nationalists and alerted Chiang’s subordinates to the planned move. Chiang ordered around 400,000 men north to reinforce the garrison in Peking and the surrounding area.

They would never make it to Peking. The Communists, using Soviet T-26 tanks, overpowered Chiang’s forces in the north before reinforcements could arrive. Although the garrison of the city of Peking was placed under siege, beginning a fierce month-long battle, the rest of the Communist forces avoided the city and headed for Tianjin and the coast.

Chiang’s reinforcements instead ended up pacifying the province of Shandong, which had been a target of fifth columnists since Mao decided upon the Peking Operation. Communists in the area were known to cause disruption by changing street signs, destroying railroads (the CCP had little in the way of rolling stock) and setting off bombs in pro-Nationalist cities. Lost in the confusion of the province, Chiang’s men were tasked with hunting down and killing any communist bands that they could find, and over the autumn the columns there were effectively wiped out.

A Mistake Repeated, August 1941

By August 1941, America was getting closer and closer to entering the war. Hundreds of American planes were being used by French, British and Nationalist Chinese air forces. The US Navy was escorting convoys to Britain as far east as Iceland. The Army was swelling in size, and industrial plants across the nation were gearing up for war against the Nazis and Communists. Although it looked inevitable that the USA would eventually join the Allies, isolationists still held a significant fraction of seats in Congress, and a return to the Western Front was not something that many Americans looked forward to. Roosevelt was hoping to give the Allies the benefits of American industrial power without the need for American soldiers.

But on August 24th, 1941, the cruiser USS Tuscaloosa was sunk while escorting a convoy. The American public was enraged, as angry at the Germans as they had been after merchant ships and the Lusitania went down in World War I (as it turned out, the Soviet submarine S-7 was responsible for sinking the Tuscaloosa, after the captain misidentified it as a British ship).

Congress was quick to declare war on Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria and the USSR, and shortly afterwards passed the Conscription Act 1941, bringing in a draft system similar to that used in World War I. The ‘sleeping giant’ had finally risen.

- BNC
 
What is the opinion of Korean with Japan and Japan’s wars in this timeline?

Japan's war against the USSR is seen by Japan and Korea as a defensive war - the Soviets quite obviously invaded Manchukuo where few people would know much about the Nomonhan clash that triggered it. This is going to trigger more pro-Japan support as Koreans want to have Japan defend their homes from the foreign aggressor. A significant proportion of the independence-minded folks are also going to see Stalin as "replacing one colonial overlord with another", as Stalin has made no move to support an independent Korea (at best, he'd want a communist puppet), which will also drive Koreans to the Japanese.

At the same time, the need for labour in Japan is growing more urgent, and there are more people being conscripted, which is obviously going to cause more people to support the Soviets.

So you probably get a balance of pro-/anti-Japan similar to OTL, but more people have stronger views about whatever side they are on, due to the heightened urgency that a Red Army presence gives the situation.

- BNC
 
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