The USSR digs in

What if Stalin heeds the warnings but instead of attacking like the other thread he digs in his troops, has all his weapons manned and basically just gears up for war.
 

Bearcat

Banned
Really digging in doesn't do you any good. What he needs is mobility and the willingness to use his strategic depth. Pulling back to the eastern Polish border and fighting from the 1939 positions there (which were much stronger than the inner Polish works of 1941) would be a big help. Avoiding stupid, pointless 'stand and die' orders also helps. Preserve some of your frontline forces for the late 1941 battles. Just dig in, and the blitzkrieg pockets you, and then the German infantry starves you out and pries you out.

Really whats needed is for Stalin to be more realistic. Hard to do for a guy who everyone has learned to be afraid of telling the truth.

After that, its keeping your forces alive until the NCOs get enough experience to fight effectively. The purges have gutted your officer and NCO ranks, you need time to rebuild that capability.
 
The war would probably be over by 1943 as the full might of soviet industry would start grinding the germans down by early 1942 after a fighting retreat through the polish buffer, leaving several stalingrad-esque strongpoints throughout the country. The Germans would have to focus more and more of their energy onto the eastern from, leaving the Puppet states to their own devices against the Soviet assualts, and North Africa to the Italians.

North Africa would be taken by Britain, and as Hitler grows ever more deranged he would start moving garrison troops over to the East, leaving Britain with freed up 8th army to hopefully make landings in Europe.

If the USA still joins in then most of pre-Blitzkrieg allies can stay free of the Soviet sphere of influence, save Polan obviously, and Europe can move onto Japan in 1944 like it planned to do pre hiroshima in 1946.

Or Stalin is an idiot and the preperations only give the defenders two or thre more days to withdraw, useful, but not enough to win the war. The Nazis really just grabbed as much land as they could early on in the war using new tactics against unprepared foes, and held onto it fanatically, they never really had that good a position in 1941. No-one else on their side in Europe really wanted to fight, even if they won they were going to be second class, at best, and Stalin will be pissed at the betrayal if he can get his head around it quickly enough, and the extra preperations might give him enough time to.
 
Really digging in doesn't do you any good. What he needs is mobility and the willingness to use his strategic depth. Pulling back to the eastern Polish border and fighting from the 1939 positions there (which were much stronger than the inner Polish works of 1941) would be a big help. Avoiding stupid, pointless 'stand and die' orders also helps. Preserve some of your frontline forces for the late 1941 battles. Just dig in, and the blitzkrieg pockets you, and then the German infantry starves you out and pries you out.

Really whats needed is for Stalin to be more realistic. Hard to do for a guy who everyone has learned to be afraid of telling the truth.

After that, its keeping your forces alive until the NCOs get enough experience to fight effectively. The purges have gutted your officer and NCO ranks, you need time to rebuild that capability.

I'm not saying they just sit there. That would be stupid but having much of your infantry entrenched isn't. Infantry is better protected in trenches but it doesn't mean you should never move them when and where warrented.
 
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